


Baby, You're Making Me Crazy

by bonusparts



Series: Lifetime Lovebirds [2]
Category: DCU, Hawk and Dove (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types, Titans (Comics), Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Adult Content, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Civilian Life, Drama & Romance, Explicit Language, F/M, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Living Together, Magic, Marriage, Pregnancy, Romance, Sexual Content, Sisters, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:09:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 50,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27282451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonusparts/pseuds/bonusparts
Summary: [Follows my earlier story, "Even Cowboys Get Hip Replacements."Mood: Mostly Romance/Relationship and Family Drama, with some action beats. Dawn is a protective mama bird.Status: COMPLETE.]An almost-year of Dawn's post-vigilante life with Hank that's both too much time and not enough.
Relationships: Dawn Granger & Dick Grayson, Dawn Granger & Donna Troy, Dawn Granger & Holly Granger, Dawn Granger/Hank Hall, Dick Grayson/Koriand'r (Implied)
Series: Lifetime Lovebirds [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1991140
Comments: 73
Kudos: 7





	1. The Start of Something Magical (1)

The January cold didn’t just bite, it _ravaged_ , shredding through fleece and wool like they were candyfloss. It drove the bobcats to their dens and the birds to their nests, and their human watchers to the equivalent: indoors, fireside, and under blankets, usually shared to make more heat. Of course, sharing heat led to sharing other things, too, like playful challenges, coaxing touches, and teasing kisses that warmed more quickly – and much more enjoyably – than any crank of the thermostat. Hank was particularly adept at making Dawn flush, gasp, and sweat while outside the wind whipped and snow came down in sheets so thick as to turn the daytime dark.

His mouth knew her as well as his hands, from her earlobes and lips to her nipples and navel, and everything in-between and beyond. His deep-seated issues around self-control and abandonment meant he usually left the commencement of actual sex to her, but Dawn didn’t mind. While Hank outmatched her in size and strength, whenever she’d look at him stretched out beneath her, or scrape her nails across his wide, working back, or thrust against him with her hips, she always felt privileged and powerful to have him.

They’d learned, over time and with practice, how to make sex gratifying for both of them, a more or less equal give and take. The cold brought out something new in them, though. Fueled as much by Chaos magic as by his natural metabolism, Hank’s heat flared against the chill. And that heat sang to something deep and ageless inside of Dawn, something that fascinated and exhilarated and aroused her.

While Hank went out to check the mailbox at the end of the drive, Dawn snuggled under a fluffy blanket on the sofa, cupping her hands over her nose and mouth to try and create her own warmth. It didn’t quite satisfy; she had never been able to generate the kind of heat he did. Even in the winter, he could get away with a short-sleeved shirt and shorts as pajamas, while she had to bundle up in full-length cotton and fleece. Unless he was willing to share. Which, thankfully, he always was.

He came back amid a blast of cold from the open door, declaring, “It is fucking _brisk_ out there!”

She leaned her head over the back of the sofa to watch him upside-down as he shut the door, slipped out of his jacket, and stamped his boots. He pulled his outdoor hoodie off over his head, too, working those big arms and broad shoulders in a smooth, supple sway that left her biting her lip. “Well, why don’t you get under this blanket with me,” she told him with a smile, “and we can warm each other up?”

He grinned his agreement and started toward her, then paused to bob his head at the sizzling fire. “Should I get more wood?”

A vulgar innuendo about him “getting wood” popped into her head. She didn’t voice it, though, instead just shifting against the cushions to make room as she offered him a simple, “We’ll be fine.”

He came around the sofa. Before slipping under the blanket with her, he shoved off his jeans and tossed them to the side.

Dawn formed her lips into a teasing moue. “Oo. Take it all off!”

Hank chuckled. “No way.” He hurried under the blanket and stretched out with her. “But body heat’s nice,” he said, his words blowing softly over her cheek as he put his hands on her waist. Even through the cotton of her nightshirt, she felt the chilling effect of the outdoors, though it was fading fast.

She breathed a hum as she settled her arms into familiar place around him. “Especially this body,” she said, and slipped her hand under the waist of his shorts to squeeze her fingers into one cool and firm buttock.

He reacted with a grunt, and she felt a faint, fluttering bump against her hip. Then they kissed, softly and sweetly, and the warmth from where their lips touched spread through her whole body, tingling her nerves and setting her senses to overload. Five minutes later, she was asking him to make love to her. Three minutes after that, they were naked. One minute after that, she was rocking on top of him and he was rolling his hips against her, quickly finding their familiar sexual groove.

She guided the path of his hands, one to her breast and the other to her mouth, where she sucked his thumb hard and deep, the nail scraping the tender skin near the top of her throat. That was always a bit much for him, and she watched him peak first in the astounded drop of his jaw and the dilation of his pupils, then felt him shudder a second later.

His coming incited hers, so even as she felt him slowly waning, she swooped in to latch her mouth to his. Pressed tight to him, she pumped her hips down vigorously and clawed her fingers into his thighs. She clenched her muscles into a rigid grip, holding him inside of her until stars started to pop in her vision even behind her eyelids, and she had to let go of his lips to loose a quiet, whimpering cry of delight.

They were both still breathing hard as she slipped off of him. Loathe to actually get up, Dawn snatched her pajama bottoms from the floor and tucked them between her legs, then pulled the blanket up around them again; the cold was already starting to leech what heat lingered from their sex. Hank was still warm, though, so she cuddled close to him, rustling her head against the hollow of his shoulder.

He slipped his arms around her and squeezed. “I love you,” he mumbled into her hair.

She answered back the same with words and a hug. She closed her eyes and tapped three light kisses to his chest, and was about to suggest they take a nap when he said:

“I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”

She’d just gotten comfortable but had to admit: “A little.”

“I was thinking I’d make us some scones.”

That snapped her eyes wide open. “Oo,” she said, lifting her head to stare at him.

He smiled. “Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

Hank shimmied out from her arms and climbed, long-limbed and naked, over the back of the sofa. He gave a quick all-over shiver that tightened the perk of his nipples and clench of his belly, and made his shrunken dangly bits jiggle.

Dawn snickered from under safe cover of the blanket. “You going to do it like that?”

“No,” he said simply, stepping into his shorts and wriggling into his Henley again. He lunged over the length of the sofa for a quick peck of her lips. “Sit tight. This should take me about thirty-five minutes.”

He hopped away into the kitchen, leaving her to snuggle into the comfort of the blanket. There was some residual warmth, but not enough to drowse. After listening to him rattle and rustle in the kitchen for ten minutes, Dawn put on her shirt and panties and padded after him. She stepped lightly on the balls of her feet to keep them from touching too much cold floor, so arrived without alerting him.

Hank had first started cooking because, as he lamented, sobriety made him feel “every single fucking hour of the day.” The effort-reward part of his brain liked tangible compensation, one that didn’t take too long to produce. Happily, cooking turned out be a task he more than merely enjoyed; he’d gotten pretty good at it, too. A marked improvement from the first dinner he’d tried making for them, a steak that had ended up scorched, wet, and thoroughly inedible.

Dawn usually helped with prep, but for some recipes, two people made things less efficient. Hank had committed this scone formula to memory, and he measured, mixed, and dropped the dough with easy self-assurance. When he had to bend over to slide the pan into the oven, giving her a delicious view of his backside, she finally announced herself with a sprightly tease:

“Barefoot in the kitchen. Just the way I like you.”

Hank shot her a smirk over his shoulder. “That’s sexist.”

“I’m glad you recognize that,” she said, as she moved close to put her arms around him.

He stepped out of her embrace to set the kitchen timer. Eighteen minutes. More than enough time to return to the comfort of the sofa for a brisk quickie.

When he came back, bowing his head for a lightly tonguing kiss, she just about grabbed him by his shirt in readiness of tossing him toward the living room. But he stopped her with a phrase.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Uh-oh,” Dawn joked.

Hank smiled but his gaze was earnest. “I’m coming up on three years clean,” he said, as he started them on a gentle sway. “And we’re in a good place, now. That Chaos magic stuff was the last boot thrown into our works, and that was over a year ago!”

She could guess where he was going with this, but she wanted him to say it. “So…?”

“So,” he repeated, as if on cue. “I’m thinking it might be time for us to make things official.”

She lifted her brows at him. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah,” he said, scuffing his foot and swinging his head like a much younger bashful lad. “We could set a date, shop for some rings, decide on the song we want to dance to…!”

She grinned, then pressed her lips together to make him suffer. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Oh,” he said, stepping back from her again. He turned to the counter and reached for the charming sugar bowl they used when guests visited. It rattled when he presented it to her. “You mean this?” he said, and lifted the lid.

Dawn peered inside the bowl. It was empty…save for an elegant ring molded with Edwardian filigree, with a small, simple diamond embedded in the design.

Her heart pattered with inexplicable anxiety, and she put her hand to her mouth, no longer jesting. Her gaze jumped from the ring to his face, just past the rim of the bowl. The loveable fool had actually gone to his knees.

“Dawn Granger,” he began there, in a slow and atypically weighty tone.

She grabbed the shoulder of his shirt. “Get up,” she said before he could go any further, and hauled him back to his feet. She put her hand on the little sugar bowl, the ring still rattling inside, and mashed their mouths together in a powerful kiss.

When their passion softened and their lips came apart, he whispered, “You didn’t let me say it.”

“You don’t have to say it,” she told him, pressing her palm to his cheek.

“I want to make you happy,” he said, still whispering. “As much as you make me happy. I want to be your partner.” He kissed her softly. “And your lover.” Another, gentler kiss. “And your husband,” he said, punctuating it with the most delicate kiss so far. He rubbed the tips of their noses together and asked, “Will you have me?”

Even though her heart was overflowing, she kept her voice steady. “Yes,” she said with a stroke of his face. “I will.” She smiled. “For ever and always.”

His face flushed almost feverishly bright. Then he glanced to the bowl still in their hands. “You want to try on the ring?”

She felt a beam burst. “Absolutely!”

She drew back just far enough for him to bring the bowl between them. He fished it out and slipped it over her ring finger. While it was fairly loose going over her knuckle, she was struck by the feeling that it had always been and would always be there.

“It’s beautiful,” she told him. “Where did you get it?”

“It was my mom’s.” He shrugged. “After she died, my brother and I put it in a safe deposit box. Made it just hard enough to get to, to keep from hocking it on a whim. It’s been going from box to box and city to city for the last almost-twenty years. I think she’d approve of this, though,” he added in a quiet voice. “She’d have liked you a lot.”

The statement was so plain and forthcoming, but it set off in Dawn a feeling of acute sadness. She’d never known Hank’s mother, who had died when he was a teenager, long before the fateful day of their meeting on B Street. But her own mother had often expressed in not-so-subtle nudges how Dawn should settle down with a good, wholesome, handsome man. Not like her father. Never like her father.

She rubbed her thumb over the ring’s metal filigree, thinking how much her mum would have gushed over it and over Hank, so loving and stable and sober. How she would have hugged Dawn so tightly, her bosom abundant with joy. And how Dawn would never be graced with that feeling of a mother’s love again.

She laid her ring hand over her heart and raised her face to his, sniffling and wiping at her wet cheeks with her other hand as she said, “Thank you.”

A tender frown creased his brow. “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said, and she laughed.

“It’s OK,” she told him around what was surely a very red-eyed smile. She didn’t think she would cry at this moment, either. They’d talked about the possibility a long time. Always in the abstract, though, not with any tangible evidence of their intention.

Hank smiled wide again, then nodded to her hands. “So…you like it?”

“I love it.” She stole her hands behind his head, rising on her toes as she brought him close for another kiss. “I love you,” she said there close to his lips. She kissed him once more, then lowered herself to her heels and wound both arms around him.

He hissed and rubbed her back. “Oh, babe, I’m sorry. You must be freezing!”

She shook her head and squeezed him tighter, feeling the glow of his heat flow from him and into her. “Not anymore.”


	2. Best Woman (4)

Dawn backed into a supremely lucky space nearly right in front of the converted industrial building that Donna Troy called home. Or, that Donna called home when she wasn’t traveling the globe as a celebrated photojournalist, half-Amazonian warrior, or still sometimes superhero. Dawn had tried to keep a regular schedule of monthly girlfriend meetups, but Donna’s itinerary often changed at the last minute; the last time they’d seen each other face to face, the trees in Millennium Park were just starting to turn to their autumn colors.

She bundled up for the bracing wind, locked the car, and walked to Donna’s door. She pressed the buzzer once, and less than a minute later, the door swung open, blowing Donna’s hair back from her face.

“Hey!” Donna said, stepping out for a fast hug. The scent of vanilla and cinnamon filled Dawn’s nostrils as she held herself to her friend an extra-long moment.

“Sorry; I’m running late.” Donna jerked her head toward the inside. “Want a chai?”

“Love one,” Dawn agreed, stepping into the warmth of the apartment with a smile.

Donna led the way through a puzzlingly large dining room that Dawn couldn’t imagine ever got used given Donna’s schedule, into the bright but oversized metalworks kitchen. A pot of tea was already on the counter, next to a mug left half-full. Donna pulled another mug from a spotless and orderly cabinet and poured Dawn her own milky, spicy tea at the little eating nook next to the kitchen’s bay window.

“Things have been crazy, lately,” Donna said as she made her way around the kitchen, tying up her hair, putting in earrings, and trying on one set of close-fitting bracelets similar to her old Wonder Girl bracelets before trading them for another set of more dangling ones. “With the new book coming out, and marketing related to that, plus this assignment I just got for Greenland, I don’t— _whaaaaaat_!”

Donna froze by the nook, her mouth comically agape as she stared at the little ring around Dawn’s finger.

“Oh, this?” Dawn said, lifting her hand with a delighted giggle.

Slowly, Donna’s expression became a shining smile, and she sat across from Dawn at the nook. “Are you telling me your big lug finally grew a pair and proposed?”

Dawn laughed and bobbed her head. “Last month.”

“Shut up!” Donna reached out and slapped her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to do it in person! And, like you said, things have been so busy. I’ve actually been exhausted these past couple weeks!” Dawn said, leaning her head on her not-ring hand for a light rub of her brow.

Donna blew a soft hum as she leaned across the table. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Dawn pinched her smile. “There’s something else I wanted to ask you.”

“Anything,” Donna said.

Dawn reached out to touch her hand. “Would you stand with us,” she asked, “when we get married?”

A look of serene and supportive love warmed Donna’s face. “I’d be honored.” A mischievous grin took its place a second later. “Do I get to make the other bridesmaids wear ugly dresses?”

“Actually, you’d be standing with Hank,” Dawn told her, causing Donna to blink and sit back. “I just mentioned making plans for a wedding party, and the first words out of his mouth were, ‘Dibs on Donna,’” she said, tucking her chin to mimic Hank’s lower timbre.

“Aw,” Donna crooned. Then she narrowed her eyes in playfully critical fashion. “Why didn’t you say dibs on Donna?”

“Hank doesn’t have any family left.” Dawn rolled her gaze to the ceiling. “And I suppose I should ask Holly. Otherwise, she’ll just find a way to crash the party.”

Donna let out a gentle grunt. “How long has it been since you’ve seen the prodigal sister?”

“A few years.” Dawn remembered it well: a ripping intrusion into her already stressful life of therapy support appointments. “Hank was still at rehab.” Which meant that Dawn had been alone in that tiny Bay Area rental while Holly had whirled around the city in a rave-induced storm of petty but constant misconduct. What could have been a comforting reunion of sisters long estranged had disintegrated into a rehashing of old arguments, culminating in Holly flying away into the night just like she’d always done, though not before taking the last saved cash from Dawn’s wallet and leaving a note that told her to enjoy her stupid, dead end life with her loser addict boyfriend. Dawn had crumpled the note into a fist, then grabbed a pillow for a scream that had turned into a cry. She hadn’t spoken to Holly – or even tried to find her – since.

Donna’s hand touched hers, a gentle gesture of reassurance. “Sisterly bonds are strong.”

Dawn smiled; an Amazon would say that. She flapped her fingers. “I’m not worried.” Holly would make herself found or she wouldn’t. “What about you? Another book coming out? That’s exciting!”

It was Donna’s turn to dismiss. “It’s just a bunch of prints from the last year.”

“Well, we love seeing your work. We still have that photo you took of that kid sitting on Henningsvaer soccer field, framed on our wall. Every time somebody takes an interest in it, Hank gets this proud look on his face and says, ‘That’s a one-of-a-kind, authentic Donna Troy.’”

Donna threw back her head for a laugh. “I can always count on you and Hank to back me up.”

“And we can always count on you,” Dawn told her with a smile.

Donna squeezed her hand. “Oh, I’m _so_ glad you two are doing this! Finally,” she added with a smirk as she recovered her friendly irreverence.

“Because someone needs to make an honest woman of me?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Donna said, though her smirk stayed in place. “But if you wear white, I’m going to call foul.”

Dawn made a playful gasp before they both broke into silly laughter. Then it was into the city for a chatty lunch at one of Donna’s favorite bistros in The Loop, where the wait staff knew her on sight and gave her one of the best tables in the house.

As their server brought waters and wines, Dawn fought to moderate her envy. “Must be nice to be famous in this town,” she muttered.

Donna pulled a face. “Says the former Washington Ballet ballerina.”

“Emphasis on former,” Dawn told her as she rubbed her temple again. “I don’t think I could do a decent grand jeté anymore.”

“You should go back to it,” Donna suggested. “Set up a hobby group for country kids, or something. Get a little classical culture movement going.”

Dawn just hummed. That sounded like a nice, homey project, certainly something she could be good at. But also commonplace and kind of dull, compared to the life Donna led. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She sighed. “I get tired just thinking about the effort it would take.”

Donna frowned, suddenly concerned. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah,” Dawn said…though, her voice didn’t come out with the confidence necessary to convince Donna, who kept frowning. “It’s all the planning we have to do, I think,” she said, in the hope that her friend would stop staring at her. “There’s so much of it, and being so remote makes things even harder.”

“Why don’t you and Hank come into the city for a weekend, see if you can get everything done in a blitz? I’d be happy to help.” Donna’s grin came back. “I know a great little karaoke place. I’d love to see your duet for myself.”

Dawn laughed. “No, you don’t! But it’s a sweet offer.” She nodded. “I’ll talk to Hank about it. I’m sure we can find at least one good weekend that works for everyone.”

Donna’s gaze glinted. “The other option is, you could leave the beef at home, I could call Kory, and the three of us could make it a tequila and Tanqueray night on the town.”

Dawn chuckled but shook her head. “Those days I am happy to leave behind.” She did her best to focus the rest of her afternoon with Donna on less life-changing topics, leaving the quiet contemplation of those for the drive home.

When she got back to the house, the skies were dark and the temperature had plummeted, giving speed to her step between the car and the front door. Inside, the fire was going and Hank was sitting in front of the TV, tapping buttons on the videogame console controller. The smell of stew wafted from the kitchen, a soothing sensory welcome.

“Hey,” Hank said, only half-turning his head from his game. “How was Chicago?”

“Cold,” Dawn answered as she sloughed off her outerwear. She came around the edge of the sofa and sat down next to him, tucking her feet up to the side and pulling the blanket over them. “Donna’s doing well, though.”

“Did you talk to her about you-know-what?”

“Yes. She’s happy to be your Best Woman.”

“Well, not my _best_ woman,” Hank said. “That’s you.”

Dawn hummed and smiled. She saw his gaming headset sitting on the other side of him, discarded at the moment, and asked, “Did you talk to Roy?”

“Yeah.”

“What did he say?”

Hank kept tapping buttons. “He said as long as he can plan the bachelor party, he’s cool.”

Dawn scrunched her nose. “Are you really going to have a bachelor party?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“It’s just so…bro-ish.”

“It’ll probably be just me, Roy, and Dick. Maybe Gar.”

That provided more perspective. “I guess that wouldn’t get too crazy.” Three of them couldn’t even drink.

“I dunno,” Hank said, half-goading with one of his side-heavy smiles. “Go-karts were mentioned!”

Dawn giggled, then countered with her own singles offer. “Donna said I should go out with her and Kory some night, paint the town red.”

“A lit-up ladies’ night, huh?”

She laid her head lightly on his shoulder. “It sounded so exhausting.”

Hank chuckled, paused his game, and tossed the controller aside. He put an arm around her and drew her in close, pressing a kiss to her crown. “How about,” he murmured there, “we have some dinner, watch a little feel-good TV, and then soak in a nice, hot bath?”

Dawn snuggled into his side. “Are you going to be there, too?”

“That’s what the big tub is for. I’ll even add one of those fizzy bath thingies you like.”

She grinned. “I can’t wait for nights like this to be the rest of my life.”

“The good news is, you don’t have to wait,” he said, and craned his head down to kiss her.

Dawn hummed against his mouth, then shifted her weight to climb onto him, straddling his lap. They moved into a slow, dry grind that sent tingling ripples of pleasure through her whole body, exciting the nerves in every erogenous zone. Hank was starting to react, too, and she was just about to open his pants when their progress was cut short by a noisy, irritated rumble from her belly.

“Whoa,” Hank said, pulling back. “Did you swallow a mountain lion or something?”

“I didn’t have much of a lunch,” Dawn said, though at the time, the _prix fixe_ meal at Donna’s bistro pick had seemed hearty enough. She caressed his cheek and lifted his face to refresh their kisses. “But don’t stop. That was just starting to get good.”

But Hank drew back with a chuckle. “We can come back to it later. Right now, let’s get you satisfied.”

As he extricated himself from her embrace and stood up, she growled after him, “I’ll tell you what will satisfy me…!”

“Later,” Hank repeated, punctuating it with a pat of a kiss to her head.

Dawn sighed but got up to help dish out dinner.

The rest of the evening went as planned, with a comforting meal, a cozy mystery show, and that gloriously luxurious cardamom-scented bath. While it was romantic to lie against him as he squeezed the soft, fluffy sea sponge over her shoulders and chest, it was also drowsing. Dawn actually dozed off there, her dreamless nap broken when Hank shook her to make sure she was all right.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, running her wet hand over her brow. “I’m just so tired…!”

“That’s OK. You had a long day.” He shifted his long legs in the water, making it lap up the sides of the tub. “Let’s just go to bed.”

She gave a little groan. “But I wanted you.”

He chuckled. “You’ve still got me,” he assured her, then seemed to take half the water with him as he stood up for their towels.

Dawn made it into her pajamas and bed without fumble or stumble, though the cotton felt thick and hot around her. Still slightly dazed from the bath, she considered changing into something silky, clingy, and sexy. But as soon as her head found the pillow, that became just a dream. A dream she promised herself to make true, though maybe not until the weather warmed up, and she weren’t so damned tired all the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Donna with Dawn proved to be a different character than Donna with Hank. I've loved writing both versions. 
> 
> I'm not sure I'll be able to pull off weekly updates of this story like I did the last one. Though, it's been a lot easier for me to write this than it has been to concentrate on my NaNo 2020 space opera! Maybe Dawn's trying to tell me something....
> 
> Thanks to everyone who offered kudos and comments to chapter 1! You know, you're the main reason I keep going. :)


	3. Little Sister (6)

The registry of names in her phone’s contact list glowed up at her. Dawn thumbed her way down the roll, past familiar names like Karen Beecher, Lilith Clay, Dick, and Donna. When she came to Hank’s name, she hesitated.

He was out on a ranger ride-along today, learning about wildland firefighting and fire prevention for the grounds. Since their move out here, he’d shied away from getting involved with vulnerable kids again; too many bad memories of past tragedies. She considered for a moment calling him, just to hear his voice…but he’d been looking forward to this little outdoorsy adventure for weeks, and she didn’t want to interrupt him with what was only a distraction of her own.

Another quick flick of her thumb pushed another name up the screen – Roy Harper – before stalling on the last H in the list, the one she’d looked at and paused over for what could have been the hundredth or even thousandth time.

Holly.

Dawn hadn’t spoken to her younger sister in more than three years. Holly had an email address but either never checked it or simply never wrote back to Dawn. Even her SMS messages were few and far between. The last one Dawn had received had come more than a year ago, and it had been an accidental missive at that. One line had arrived at almost two in the morning, obviously meant for someone else: _Bitch needs to get her tits out of my face._ Dawn had tapped out a response – three quick question marks – but there’d been no reply and no other correspondence to follow, drunk-dialed or otherwise.

Classic Holly, in a nutshell. Swoop in like a fast summer storm, without warning, make a mess, then fly out again with no remorse.

Dawn sighed, made a face at her phone, and rubbed her belly. Just the thought of dealing with Holly again had her stomach in an uncomfortable twist.

But she’d promised Hank she’d do this. Today.

She tapped Holly’s name, then tapped again on the call button before she could fabricate another lame excuse for putting off contacting her sister.

The phone on the other end of the line – wherever it terminated – rang six, seven, eight times. By the tenth ring, Dawn was ready and perfectly willing to give up when the line clicked open and she heard a voice, partly girlish and partly churlish, say with brisk impatience:

“Yeah?”

“Holly? It- It’s Dawn.”

“Yeah, I can see that; I’m not illiterate. What you want?”

Dawn sat straight on her kitchen chair, briefly flummoxed. “I, um…? Uh, where are you, these days?”

Something on Holly’s end gave a shrill clang. “You happened to catch me on a swing through Sin City,” she said, and the clang sounded again. Not cell reception then, just random noise on the Las Vegas strip.

“Having fun?” Dawn asked.

Holly snickered across the distance. “Yeah! This place is oozing with thick-headed marks. Speaking of,” she drawled on. “How’s your junkie jock-boy?”

Dawn looked down her nose at the table, visualizing her sister’s oval face in the wood. “Hank is fine. Better than he’s been in a long time.”

Holly hummed, a sound of cavalier indifference.

“Actually,” Dawn continued, “he’s part of the reason I’m calling.”

Holly’s voice jumped. “Cutting him loose?”

“No,” Dawn said, unable to keep the snippiness from her tone. She drew a preparatory breath and tried to smile. “We’re getting married,” she began, though before she could go on to details, Holly interrupted with a chortle.

“Oh, fuck! Are you preggers?” she asked, the word making her English accent more pronounced.

“No,” Dawn said again, sharper this time. She slapped her hand to the table. “God! Why do you always have to stab your cynicism into everything?”

Holly humphed. “Sorry,” she said, sounding just barely contrite. “Not everybody can be Little Miss Perfect.”

Dawn scrunched her lips and eyes shut in an effort to regain some of her lost control. She realized she was clenching her fist and took another deep breath, releasing some of that tension into the air through her nose. “Can I start again?”

There was a pause over the line, filled only with the sound of bells, until Holly muttered, “Sure.”

“I know we’ve had our differences in the past, but…” She swallowed and made a smile for her voice. “You’re my sister. I would like you to be there when Hank and I get married.”

More far-off bell sounds. Then Holly said, “Really?”

Dawn’s belly twisted at the little-girl tone in her sister’s voice. They’d spent so much of their childhood apart, she’d never really been a big sister to Holly. A sudden urge to protect her – to hold her and cuddle her and soothe her from the terrors of the dark – swelled in her chest and made her almost tear up.

“Of course,” Dawn said. “We’re the only family we’ve got.” Her thoughts returned briefly to those dark terrors, and she muttered, “Except for, you know, Russ,” that last word coming out as if it were cursed.

“He’s dead.”

Dawn almost dropped her phone. “What?” Her belly tightened further.

“Renal failure.” Holly sounded unconcerned. “Bad rubbish, right?”

“When?”

A pondering hum. “Two years ago?”

Dawn’s stomach flipped. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t know how to reach you.”

“Holly, you have my number. You’re talking to me right now!”

“What do you care?” Holly replied. “After everything he did to us, and to Mum, he deserved what he got. What, you wanted him to walk you down the aisle, give you away?”

A riot of emotions clashed in Dawn’s core. She pressed her fingertips into her forehead. “No,” she said, almost whimpering.

“You wanted to be the good girl and forgive him, I guess?”

Dawn shut her eyes, growling, “No!”

“Show everybody else how much better you are than the rest of us?” Holly went on taunting. “‘Oo, look at Dawn. She’s so noble. What a princess.’”

“Oh, fuck off!”

Holly laughed. “Did you just tell me to fuck off? Oh, now, I _do_ want to come to your wedding!”

Dawn jammed the hang-up icon on her phone, but she could still hear Holly laughing even after the service was cut. She glared at the screen with its completed call information and Holly’s name at the top of the list and briefly considered throwing the phone across the room.

But what good would that do?

She set the phone on the table face side down and stood up to go hunting for a snack, some tea, anything to take her mind off the news from her sister.

Russ Granger was dead. Her father was dead. Holly was right: if anyone deserved death, it was the man who’d time and again taken his knuckles to her and her sister and their beautiful mother. He deserved no tears. Dawn cried them anyway.

They started as bitter anger but quickly turned to sorrow, and very shortly she was breaking down to the floor in the middle of the kitchen, curling her body into a protective ball as she wept and wailed in mourning for the family she’d never had. For the little princess she’d once thought herself to be, twirling in a tutu. She cried, too, for the littler princess her sister could have been, rather than the spiteful, lonely rabblerouser she’d become without a loving home. For the kingly father who should have shielded and nurtured her but had never, ever done, and for the queenly mother who’d loved her like no other but who had died far too young.

“Mum!” she sobbed to no one, a foolish but comforting lament as she lay on the floor. Though, as soon as she said it, her tears abided, and a solemn calm enveloped her. Or, rather, it spread through her body from inside her, a blooming warmth not unlike the effect of a hot whisky toddy.

She sniffled and wiped at her cheeks, silently cursing such silly histrionics. Then she got up and shuffled to the living room, where she made a fire and crawled under a blanket in front of it. She lay there, one arm under her head, and stared into the flames a long time. She cried a little bit again, a few slow tears of wretched exhaustion. After a while, she fell to sleep, and dreamed of a tiny girl in a tulle-netting dress, with ribbons of platinum blonde hair whirling around her.

She woke to a rough shake and Hank’s strained, shouting voice.

“Dawn? Dawn, are you OK? Dawn!”

She sucked in a sharp breath and opened her eyes. He was kneeling over her, his arms around her and his cheeks flushed bright. He was still wearing his beanie cap, as well as his jacket. “What…?”

“Are you OK?” he repeated, still loudly but no longer yelling.

“I must have fallen asleep,” she said, using his hold to pull herself up.

Hank relaxed a bit. “I left a message on your phone to say I was going to be late for dinner. When I came home and saw you on the floor…!” He eased down next to her. “Are you sure you’re OK?”

She gave a short nod. “I’m fine. Just tired, lately.” She sniffed, blinked, and smiled at him. “How was your ranger ride?”

“Good,” he said, and grinned back. “Really cool! I went out with the conservation team and we caught one of the tracked bobcats, then took him back to the vet center to do some bloodwork on him. He was so cute! I mean, vicious, but still cute.” He frowned suddenly and took her hand. “You want to tell me what happened? Because it would be one thing if you fell asleep on the couch with a book in your lap, but lying on the floor in the middle of winter is something else.”

Dawn started to dismiss him with a shake of her head, then stopped herself and said, “My dad died.” Even to her own ears, her tone sounded flat.

Hank seemed to stop breathing. “Your dad?”

She nodded. “Holly told me.”

He grunted. “How? When?”

“Renal failure, she said.” Her dispassionate tone stayed in place. “About two years ago.”

Hank pulled his cap off his head, ruffling his short hair. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“Don’t be. He was a monster.”

Hank’s expression went from surprise to suspicion to ready ferocity in less than a heartbeat. “What did he do?” he said, his voice skipping the first two emotions and going straight to rumbling anger.

Dawn told him then, in measured, calculated fashion, about the screaming matches met with broken china and shattered glass, and how the slaps and wranglings became punches and stranglings, all hidden behind the façade of upper-class London life. Of the bare-knuckled crack that had been, at last, one too many for Dawn, and she’d used a jujutsu joint lock to break Russ’s offending arm.

Hank listened to her in silence as she recounted those memories, his face growing darker with the description of each passing transgression. When she finished her swift narration, he hugged her close and laid his cheek on her crown.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, “that he hurt you. And that I never asked about it.”

Dawn leaned into the comfort of his heat. “I wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it anyway.”

“Is it OK for me to say I’m glad he’s dead? If nothing else, it saves me the trouble of twisting his head off.”

Dawn chuckled and patted his arm. “Perfectly OK.”

He mumbled into her hair, “Why are some people so shitty to kids?”

“Because kids are small,” she said, putting words to her own childhood anger and pain. “And they’re scared. And it’s hard for them to fight back.” She gripped his strong, clenching forearm. “Luckily, some kids get to grow up, and they do fight back. With a vengeance.”

“I’m going to teach our kids to fight back starting day one,” he murmured.

She turned her clutch to a rub. “Me, too.”

They sat together in contemplative quietude a while. Then Hank pressed a kiss to her head and asked:

“Do you want to talk about it some more?”

“Not right now,” Dawn told him. She shifted back, craning her head to see his face. “But maybe some other time?”

He bowed his head. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m here.”

She found his hand, entwined her fingers with his, and smiled. “That’s why I’m marrying you.”

His gaze stayed loving for a long moment before his mouth twisted into one of its cocky half-grins. “I thought it was because you find me so fucking hot.”

Dawn’s former melancholia splintered with a laugh. “Well, there’s that…and how good you are at making pasta al limone.”

Hank chuckled, too. “Oh, is that a hint?”

“Maybe.”

“Can I at least get out of my jacket, first?”

Dawn eyed him and reached up, grasping the pull of his zipper. “Let me help you with that,” she said, and angled her head for a kiss. As their lips met, she felt a surge of love for him and the man he was and could be, and for the woman she wanted to be with him, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, that Holly. Am I right? There's a lot of history there that needs unpacking, and I'm taking some liberties looking at the past through the lens of Dawn's experience. But that's what fan fiction is for, right? Russ Granger is her father's name from the original comics; he's not the bastard there as he's portrayed to be in the show. The show at least made something more out of him than just being "Dawn's dad," even if that something was a wife- and child-beater. Then, of course, there's Hank, and all that baggage that comes with his past. No wonder Dawn's going through some exhausting stuff!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this tiny step forward in the story. It won't always be this heavy, I promise.


	4. Testing the Waters (8)

Despite the fact it was barely one in the afternoon, the drunken troublemakers were out in full force in the city, jostling each other and everyone else on the streets on their journeys to the next available alcoholic venue. One green-clad, inebriated celebrant stumbled into Dawn’s shoulder from the opposite direction, nearly sending her into a light pole from the impact. It took a lot of her self-control not to toss a shout after the guy, and a lot more of it to keep Hank from throttling their accoster for the indiscretion.

“I hope that asshole throws up his guts later,” Hank grumbled, still glaring as he jabbed the buzzer for the jewelry store.

“It’s St. Patrick’s Day.” Dawn yanked on the door when it gave its responding unlocking buzz. “You know how some people get about it.”

Hank took the door and held it open as she passed through. “It’s fucking obnoxious,” he said, and she shot him a little scolding look for his language.

The sales attendant, a matronly woman with silvery hair, didn’t hear – or didn’t mind – as they walked to the main plexiglass counter. She smiled a professional smile that said all business was accepted equally, regardless of trappings. After the preliminary polite greetings, she laid her hands on her counter and asked, “How can I help you today?”

“Rings,” Hank said.

“Wedding bands, specifically.” Dawn touched his arm and beamed. “We’re getting married.”

The attendant’s professional smile warmed, if only slightly. “Congratulations,” she said, then directed them to a different display case with several shelves of precious metal bands in varying sizes and degrees of ornateness.

After not much deliberation – they’d agreed more than a week ago to go with elegance in simplicity, for sake of their budget as well as taste preferences – they decided on a pair of matching brushed titanium bands, with _H &D_ to be engraved on the inside rims of both. For their names, of course, but also in recognition for their previous lives as Hawk and Dove.

While they filled out the payment and engraving paperwork, Hank made a suggestion.

“Did you want to get your ring resized? You said it was loose.”

“Oh.” Dawn looked down at the engagement ring on her finger. “Right.” It had been loose when she’d first tried it on a month-and-a-half ago, but of late, she hadn’t had issues. She pulled gently on it, and it slipped almost to the knuckle, where it stopped. She stared at it a moment. Maybe it was just winter weight catching up to her, the effect of all those buttery morning scones.

They left the jewelers with an expectation delivery of their finished rings in four to six weeks, and without Dawn leaving behind the engagement ring for resizing. As they walked back to the car, she rubbed the ring through her glove, her mind clicking and ticking through doubts and ideas. She hadn’t wanted to think too much about it, but her hunger, fatigue, and uncharacteristic moodiness of late started to chip away at her dismissiveness so far. And it had been more than four weeks since her last period….

A pharmacy storefront caught her eye just as they walked past it. Dawn stopped and said:

“I need to get something.”

She turned around and hurried into the drug store even as Hank called hesitant questions behind her.

It was an unfamiliar store, and it took her a few moments to locate the right aisle. She walked down it quickly, past the shelves of condoms, lubricants, and intimate care products, to the collection of pregnancy test options.

Hank had come into the store after her, striding up with half a question. “What are you- oh.” His dark brows peaked as he came to her side. He bowed close, his head lowered so he could murmur, “You think…?”

“I don’t know.” She bit her lip as she looked up at him. “But I’d like to find out, one way or the other. Right?”

“Yeah!” He scanned the row ahead of them. “Which one?”

“I don’t know,” she said again. “They’re all basically the same, I think.” She grabbed one off the shelf. She turned it over to read the back, but her focus was all over the place and the type so tiny, the only thing that registered in her brain was the word _pregnant_. It seemed to shout up at her from the back of the box at least five times.

She put the first box back. “Maybe this one,” she said as she picked up a different one. But that one didn’t offer any greater assurance than the first, and she put it back, too.

Hank chuckled at her shoulder. “We’ll get both,” he said, plucking her choices from the shelf. He started toward the front of the store checkout, only to pause at a small display of terry cloth baby bibs. He pointed to one with a wide-eyed owl design. “Aw,” he said, making a face.

Dawn blushed. “We don’t even know for sure!”

“Yeah, but if these turn out to be positive, just think,” he said, waving the pregnancy test boxes. “Our baby’s first bib!”

Dawn grabbed his hand and forced it down. She started to giggle madly, uncontrollably, and wished only for them to be out of here and at home as quickly as possible. She snatched the owl bib from the display rack and shoved him forward. “Go!”

Hank laughed, too, in a similarly silly way to her, so that the teenager working the checkout looked at them funny. No judgment was made, though, not that any was warranted. Dawn took the bag and hustled them out of the store, then slipped her arm through Hank’s for the swift walk back to the car.

The ride home was nearly an hour. Even so, they took it in mutual muteness, letting the sound of the engine fill the space around them. Hank drove while Dawn looked up on her phone detailed directions and recommendations about how much to trust over-the-counter home pregnancy tests.

“It says,” she announced as they rolled off the highway exit ramp and onto the smaller, less uniform pavement of the local road that led through the town on the way to the house, “that it’s best to take the test first thing in the morning.”

“We’ve got to wait until tomorrow?” Hank asked, sounding aghast.

“We don’t _have_ to,” Dawn told him. “But the results are most accurate then. The urine will have the highest levels of pregnancy hormones after a night’s sleep. Apparently.”

“Oh. OK,” Hank said with a big-shouldered shrug. “Well, you know, we didn’t know before. One more night isn’t going to make much difference.”

Dawn hummed to agree, but it came out dubious. That was true, of course…except that now that they had an idea, an expectation, any delay before getting an answer – any answer – would be excruciating. She could have a baby growing inside of her right this moment. A _baby_. The very notion felt weird, exciting. Terrifying.

They pulled up to the house, and even as Hank was yanking the parking brake into place, Dawn was unbuckling her seatbelt and opening her door.

“I need to pee,” she declared, half over her shoulder as she slipped out of the car with the bag from the pharmacy crinkling in her grip.

“You’re going to take that test, aren’t you?” Hank called gleefully from behind her.

She ignored him, her hands trembling with a thrill as she struggled to get her key into the front door lock. A twist, a click, and a shove later, she was almost skipping through the main room toward the closest bathroom, the guest bathroom on the east side of the house, between the two spare bedrooms.

She didn’t bother to shut the door, just snatched a little disposable cup from the sparse medicine cabinet over the sink and unbuttoned her trousers. She sat on the toilet, biting her lip to keep her nervous grin from breaking.

“At least give me the bag,” Hank said.

Dawn looked over at him, leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe with one of his amused smiles stretched across his face. With an awkward flail, she tossed him the pharmacy bag with one hand while she tried to keep steady the other one currently held between her legs.

As Hank ripped and rustled his way through wrappers and directions, Dawn shut her eyes. _Just pee!_ she commanded, contracting the muscles in her belly for emphasis. After what felt like a workout’s worth of squeezes, a trickle of urine dropped into the cup. She managed to catch most of it but there was some splatter, and she extracted the cup with a little face of disgust.

“Don’t touch that,” she warned.

“I won’t,” he mumbled, trading his attention between the test strip applicator and the directions. He turned the printed instructions over and clicked his tongue in complaint. “This reads like a textbook!”

She finished up and washed her hands; she’d already read the instructions several times over while in the car. Dunk the strip, set aside, and wait for result: two lines for pregnant, one line for not. Simple enough. And almost impossible to do without feeling the urge to throw up.

“I’ll take care of it,” she told him, reaching for the applicator.

He grinned and held it away from her. “I want to do it.”

She started to laugh at this absurdity. “It’s my pee!”

“Fine.” He handed the applicator to her with a mocking grumble. “You get all the fun stuff.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she muttered. She dunked the strip and set it on the side of the sink, then stepped back as if it were a tiny bomb.

“Now, what?” Hank asked in the pervasive silence.

Dawn shrugged at him. “Now, we wait. Two to three minutes.”

Neither of them moved, just stared at the little applicator and its positive/negative results window.

Dawn felt her insides churn, from her belly all the way to the top of her chest. She turned to Hank. “We should have started a timer.”

“It’s been about twenty seconds,” he told her.

She threw her head back. “Ugh! I can’t just stand here in the bathroom for two to three minutes.” She shoved him in the arm. “Move.”

He didn’t budge more than a slight sway. “I thought you were supposed to be the patient one?”

“Well, I’m feeling a little out of sorts at the moment.” A dryness tightened her throat. She turned her back on the sink and the little test apparatus on its ledge and looked up at him. “What do you want?” she asked. “I mean, what do you want it to be?”

He thought a moment. “This is why we got out in the first place, right? Get married, have a family.” He bounced his shoulders. “But it’s kind of scary, suddenly staring it in the face.”

She smiled, feeling some relief at his honesty.

He took her hand. “I want to be a good husband, and a good dad, the kind of dad I didn’t have. Someone who supports and protects and takes care of his family. Somebody who’s there!” He smiled his tender smile, the one he’d make when they’d make slow, measured love, and squeezed her fingers. “But most of all, I want you,” he said. “I want to be married to you, and I want us to make a family together. Whether that’s right now or somewhere down the road; it doesn’t make a difference to me. I love you, Dawn. And I want to be at your side every step of the way, no matter what.”

She let go a tiny sigh and put her arms around him, the sound of his steady heartbeat a calming rhythm beneath her cheek as she pressed it to his chest. “I wouldn’t want to be with anybody else,” she said, and stepped back to smile up at him.

He was looking over her head, his expression blank. Then he tilted his face down to hers. “What do _you_ want?” he asked.

She started to turn but he held her in place.

“Tell me what you want,” he said. “Be honest. Without any pressure one way or the other.”

The nervousness rebounded inside of her, rising and twisting like a thing alive, as if anxious for her answer. Whatever she felt in her head or her heart, articulating those feelings would make them true. Once she did, there would be no going back, regardless what the test had to tell them.

She could say that being Dove had taught her about strength, determination, and ingenuity. She could say that being Hank’s friend and lover had taught her about patience, forgiveness, and passion. She could say that, just like him, she was eager but frightened for all the strange and wonderful possibilities that were held in the results of a little urine test strip. But in the end, as she looked into his eyes, all she said was:

“I want our baby.”

Hank turned her around to the sink. He put his arms around her and pressed his mouth to the base of her neck. There, he mumbled into her sweater, “OK.”

Dawn’s gaze fell on the plastic test apparatus on the edge of the sink. In the little results panel there were two lines, side by side.

Happy tears burst into her eyes, and she spun to hug Hank around his neck. They laughed and cried and held onto each other, repeating between them the words, _I love you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone really *not* see that coming? :)
> 
> I hope everyone who's joined me so far sticks around to see where we go from here. This is where the real rollercoaster ride starts!


	5. Titans Together...At Least Onscreen (10)

For more than a week, Dawn’s life was full of bliss and excitement. Doctor Kumahor, her OB/GYN, confirmed the pregnancy and that both Dawn and baby were doing well. Hank started to make plans for a nursery in the north-side guest bedroom. Holly even offered her congratulations in a text when Dawn let her know. But reality came barreling down on them once again when, while setting up the laptop for their scheduled meeting with the old crew, Hank paused and turned to her to ask:

“Do you still want to get married?”

“Of course, I do!” She pressed a hand over her heart, hoping its abrupt skip didn’t affect the baby any. “How could that question even occur to you?”

“I’m just saying, I’m OK to put it off until after the baby’s born. To avoid any…” He glanced at her belly, still relatively unobtrusive between them. “…visible bump situations.” His gaze came back to hers, concerned but also amused. “I mean, I was a bad kid who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks with a single mom and a brother from a different dad; it doesn’t bother me any.” He grasped her hand and squeezed. “But I want you to be happy with it.”

She smiled. “We were always going to have a non-traditional wedding.” She touched his arm, stroking the firm muscle under his shirt. “I want our baby to have you and me, together, from the get-go, officially and without question. Even if I do have to wear a loose-fitting dress.”

“White?” he asked, to which she snorted.

“No!” She recalled Donna’s equal disdain for the old-fashioned custom and gave a little hum. “Champagne, maybe. Or blush.”

Hank squinted. “You know that those distinctions mean nothing to me, right?”

“The differences are very subtle,” she allowed. She turned the laptop toward her and started searching through the local files. “Let me show you the one I like,” she said, but he waved his hands and made a trio of mock-panicked sounds.

“Ah-ah-ah!” he said, pulling a pained face. “I’m not supposed to see.”

“Stop being silly.” She found the saved image of the silk satin dress with the butterfly sleeves and the layered skirt that looked so pretty in pictures, even with the model’s rounded belly, and smiled. “I want to make sure you like it, too.”

Hank took her hand. “I’m sure whatever you choose will be beautiful,” he said, a little bit condescending but mostly encouraging. Dawn guessed because fashion had never much interested him…except when it came to his Hawk costume. An image flashed in her mind then, crystal-clear and _strong_ : of him younger, more damaged, bruised and bloody and hissing with every movement as she’d helped him peel off the white and red layers of that costume’s carbon fiber weave. How his big, hard body had seethed when she’d laid the compress to his side, and how the kiss she’d used to suck the pained whimpers from his mouth, which had been intended only to soothe, had somehow and for some reason only stoked their mutual desire. How she’d nearly torn off the rest of his costume and her own, as well, and taken him grunting and gasping on that broken-in couch in their old DC loft. And how, when they were done, lying naked and sweaty and spent, she’d thought the thought she’d had a hundred times before and a thousand times since, that she’d never love another man in quite the same way that she loved Henry Alan Harwin Hall.

He leaned over for a kiss of her cheek. Anticipating his move, she turned her head at the last second to meet his lips. When he drew back with a curious quirk of his brows, Dawn pressed forward again, snatching the short hairs on the back of his head in a fist as her passion flared.

Hank made a little noise of surprise, but it was Dick’s voice – smooth, cool, and rich with good humor – that jerked Dawn out of her lusty haze. “Oh, get a room.”

Dawn bounced to the back of the sofa with a bashful brush of her hair, but Hank was more blasé.

“Leave it to the Boy Wonder to show up early.”

Dick’s face, which filled the screen with no one else yet in the video chat room, showed his pacifying smile. “You’re the only one who calls me that anymore.”

Another window popped open. Donna appeared in the second pane, looking fresh and sassy. “Hey, Boy Wonder!” She waved her fingers. “Oo! Lovebirds are here, too. I thought I was going to be the only one.”

“I like to make sure my tech’s working properly,” Dick said.

“Of course, you do.” Donna squinted into her camera. “Is Kory coming?”

Dick’s eyes flicked upward. “She’s upstairs, tinkering in the jet.”

Hank gaped at the screen. “You have a jet, now? How come we never got a jet?”

“It’s a hand-me-down from Bruce,” Dick explained with a hint of a blush. “Kory wanted to see if she could fix it up.”

“Damn,” Hank muttered, glancing at Dawn. “We left too early. Imagine what we could have done with a fucking jet!”

“Who’s got a fucking jet?” Roy asked as he came online.

“The new team!” Hank said. “Apparently, the old bat’s just giving them away.”

“It was going to the scrapyard unless we took it,” Dick said, looking pained; Dawn had to cover her mouth to keep from giggling out loud at this familiar but fun teasing.

“Hey, Dick,” Roy said in a mock-conspiratorial tone. “Tell Bruce I could use a fucking jet.”

Dick slapped his hand to his head. “Stop saying fucking jet, Jesus!” he said, to which Roy and Hank burst into fraternal laughter. Dick groaned and let his hand fall, then sighed a smile at his screen. “Can we get started?”

“I’m still waiting for Kory,” Donna said, her cheek bunched under one fist.

As if on cue, another window popped up, and Kory breezed into view with a bright smile and a flow of hair. “I’m here!”

“Another one who likes to make an entrance,” Hank murmured.

Kory blew away his critique with a _pish_ sound. “I brought someone along, who wants to say hi.” She shifted to one side, and Rachel poked her head into view and lifted her petite hand.

Hank leaned forward with a splitting grin. “Hey! How you doing, kiddo?”

Rachel smiled a tiny bit, still mostly a stoic sorceress. “I am well. Thank you.”

“It’s good to see you,” Hank said, his voice faintly aching.

“I hope you are keeping up with your training,” Rachel said.

Hank pumped one big bicep. “Every day.”

“OK.” Dawn brushed his flexing aside. “Let’s move on.”

“Thank you,” Dick said.

Dawn paused for a breath, then nodded to the screen. “I know this call was supposed to be about wedding prep, but we’ve had a slight change in plans.”

Everyone’s faces fell blank, save for Rachel, who remained patiently attentive.

“We’re going to push up our calendar a bit.” Dawn broke into an irrepressible smile. “Because we’re going to have a baby,” she announced, as Hank hugged her with one arm.

Roy was first to react. “I knew it!” he crowed, pointing to the screen.

Donna pushed her hair back with both hands, her face bright with surprise. “You’re pregnant?”

Dawn bobbed her head. “About ten weeks.”

“That’s great,” Kory said. She turned to Rachel. “You said you sensed something about today!”

“Just a flutter,” Rachel said, and gave her tiny smile again. “Congratulations.”

A flurry of felicitations flowed across the distance, though Dick’s voice was conspicuously absent. Dawn looked at him on the screen. He was silent, staring, his expression unreadable. At last, he got out:

“Wow. I, uh…was not expecting that.”

Hank snickered. “Yeah, we weren’t expecting it, either.” He looked at Dawn and smiled tenderly. “But life is…chaotic,” he said, turning back to the screen with a laugh.

Dick seemed to recover himself with a shake of his head. He smiled back at them. “Are you OK? Do you need anything?”

“How about a jet?” Roy quipped.

Dick rolled his eyes at the laughter from every other source. “Seriously,” he said, cutting through the rest of their teasing. “What do you need us to do?”

Dawn felt a surge of love for him, for all of them. “Get ready for an early summer wedding?”

Roy snapped his fingers on both hands and pointed them to the sky like pistols. “Bachelor party planning!”

“Wait a second.” Donna leaned in toward her screen. “I’m the Best Person. Don’t I get to plan the bachelor party?”

“It’s a bachelor party, Donna,” Roy said, and emphasized the syllables. “ _Batch-eh-lor_.”

“So? I’m single and on the make.”

“Screw them,” Kory said. “I say, you, me, and Rachel take Dawn out for some strippers and shots!”

Dawn laughed and shook her head. “I can’t drink.”

“So, we’ll do the shots,” Kory said, unconcerned.

Donna snapped her fingers and wagged her shoulders back and forth. “You can still stuff dollah bills into some low-hanging g-strings!” she said from one side of her mouth.

“Now, I want to go to your party,” Roy said.

Dick covered his face again. “Oh, God.” He made a pained face at the screen. “How did this session get so out of control?”

Hank bent toward the laptop with a grin. “I told you, man: it’s _chaotic_.”

There was more laughter and teasing and jokes, and while Dawn joined in, she couldn’t help but notice Dick’s subtle separation from it all. She got the sense he wouldn’t be comfortable staying on to talk with Hank around – there was a lot of history between the three of them – but after the video chat went dark and Hank got up to make a few mugs of tea, Dawn made an excuse to get some fresh air out on the front porch. She took her phone with her, and when she closed the door behind her, she scrolled through to Dick’s personal line.

He picked up on the second ring. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she replied softly. “Got a minute?”

“Sure.” He sounded receptive; breezy. “You forget something?”

“No. I just wanted to make sure….” She looked out toward the mountains. “You’re OK with this?”

“You took me by surprise.” Across the line, he paused, then let out a barely audible sigh. “I was thinking about asking you back.”

A sudden flash of dread stuttered her heartbeat. But then Dick went on.

“Not full-time, of course! And not here in California; I wouldn’t do that to Hank. But Rachel said she learned a lot from spending time with the two of you, and I know Gar would benefit from some space to stretch his wings.” He chuckled. “Did you know, he can shift into birds, now?”

Dawn smiled into her phone. “I didn’t. That sounds nice, though; having them come by.”

Dick sighed again. “Well, a baby changes that plan.”

Dawn straightened up. “Not necessarily. I mean, it’s probably not a great idea to have them around right after the baby’s born. But we could do something before then. Or when the baby’s a little older. What are you always fond of telling us? Once a Titan, always a Titan?”

Dick laughed. “You know, you’re the only one who never made fun of me for saying that?”

“I think it’s true,” Dawn told him, albeit with a smile.

“It is,” Dick said, and she could hear his smile, too. “And I meant what I said before. You need anything, I’m always here. For both of you.” He gave another chuckle. “Or, all three of you, I guess.”

Dawn touched her belly. “Right.”

“Listen, I’ve got to go. The kids have a hand-to-hand session. You take care, now.”

“You, too,” she said, and tapped the line off. She sensed Hank behind her before she heard him ask:

“Was that Dick?”

Dawn turned with a nod and a hum. She accepted the steaming mug of tea he passed over. “Yeah.”

Hank leaned against the porch roof’s support beam, muttering mostly into his tea, “He looked a little pale when we told him.”

Dawn dipped her head into the fragrant mint steam. “He said he was thinking of asking us to come back.”

“As Titans?” Hank said, eyes wide.

“Trainers,” Dawn corrected. While he relaxed his stance again, she couldn’t be sure if it was from relief or disappointment. “I told him we’d be happy to have Rachel or Gar or whomever come out for a few days.”

“Not now!”

She frowned at him. “Why not now?”

He gawped. “Dawn, you can’t be serious! You’re in no condition to do combat training with a bunch of teenagers. Or anybody else, for that matter!”

“I think I know my own limitations! And who said anything about combat training? Just because that’s all you cared about when you were a Titan doesn’t mean that’s all there is. I thought all that time you spent with Rachel would have taught you that,” she spat out, and spun on her toes to charge back into the house.

She slammed her mug down on the table next to the door. Its sudden shattering made her gasp and jump back. Hank was at her side in an instant.

“Are you OK?” he asked, his voice full of worry.

Dawn stared at the ceramic pieces and splattered tea on the floor. “Yeah,” she muttered, rubbing her hands. Then she hurried to the kitchen. “I’ll get something to clean that up.”

She grabbed a dishtowel from the oven handle and ran it under the faucet. She stood there, hands braced against the sink, as the sound of running water turned clouded in her head. What the hell had just happened?

Again, she sensed Hank’s approach. “I’m sorry,” she said over her shoulder. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“No,” he said softly. “You were right. You know what’s best for you, especially right now.”

She heard him take three steps, then the heat from his hands flowed into her shoulders and her arms as he rubbed them and moved close behind her.

“This family thing is new to me,” he murmured. “I’m sorry if it makes me a hard-headed asshole sometimes.”

Dawn touched his hand and listed back against him. “It’s OK.”

“I know you can take care of yourself,” he said, still muttering. “But I want to take care of you, too.”

She chuckled gently. “I know you do.”

His thick swallow clicked next to her ear, and his voice came out husky and hot. “And I don’t want anything to happen to our baby.”

A flame of potential wrath kindled in her breast, too, sobering her to speak a fierce commitment. “I won’t let anything happen to our baby,” she said, squeezing his hand hard. “Not now. Not ever.”

Hank put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. “I’m with you all the way,” he said.

Dawn turned in his embrace, once more feeling calm and assured. She smiled up at him. “To hell and back,” she agreed, and as one, they kissed their confirmation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit to having a bit too much fun while writing the group video chat scene, but I wanted to take some time to show that these are friends as well as former(?) comrades-in-arms. Everyone's presence is important, here, for more than just this silly scene, though perhaps none so much as Dick. 
> 
> I decided a story ago that there would be no lingering romantic triangle between Dick/Dawn/Hank, or any significant conflict ensuing from one. But I also acknowledge that there's past there, as there is past in many relationships that change and grow over time. I guess what I'm saying is that readers should not expect this to become in any way a story about Dawn having to choose between these two men or anything silly like that. This is a story about Dawn and her pregnancy with Hank, and what that means for her and their baby. While that may not sound like much, I ask you to trust me to provide an exciting time. :)
> 
> Thanks for all who take the time to read, and special thanks in advance for any who choose to review!


	6. Urges (13)

Her doctor had warned her that the ultrasound gel was cold, but despite the little jump of her belly, Dawn didn’t mind when Doctor Kumahor spread it over her skin.

“I’ve felt really warm the last few weeks,” Dawn told her as the other woman spread the gel around. “Is that normal?”

Doctor Kumahor nodded, her puffy afro following the bob of her head. “Perfectly.” Her smooth, swinging Nigerian accent always tempted Dawn to lapse back into her own old Londoner inflections. “Your body temperature can normally rise about half a degree while you are pregnant, especially during the first and second trimester.” She fixed Dawn with a clear, brown-eyed stare. “But if you develop a fever, over 102 degrees, let me know immediately.” She looked over at Hank, sitting on Dawn’s other side. “Or go straight to the Emergency Room.”

“Got it,” Hank said.

Doctor Kumahor returned her gaze to Dawn and smiled, a bright and soothing sight. “But all of your vitals are well within normal range right now, so you shouldn’t worry. Now, shall we take a look at Baby?”

Dawn grinned and squeezed Hank’s hand; he felt warm, too, and clammy. But he smiled at her when she glanced his way, and leaned close to her head to share her perspective.

In the first moment, the monitor showed nothing. But as the doctor moved the scanner around on Dawn’s belly, an open space came into view on the screen, and in that space lay a tiny, distinctly human form. Dawn gasped at its image, then fell into a sigh. Hank wheezed next to her ear, and the doctor said:

“There we are.”

Doctor Kumahor pointed out biological details like the limbs and intestines and ribcage, but Dawn couldn’t tear her eyes away from the baby’s head, so round and perfect, with the fuzzy-image ghost of a pointy little nose. She realized then that the blur wasn’t so much from the screen but her gaze, which was suddenly teary.

“Everything looks good,” the doctor told them. “It is still a bit early to definitively see the sex organs. I could make a guess, but I would not want to lead you astray. Oh!” she said, pointing at the monitor. “They’re sucking their thumb.”

“No way!” Hank said, his voice full of joy and amazement.

Dawn laughed, but no matter how much she brushed at her cheeks, her tears kept coming. She managed to restore some of her calm over the next fifteen minutes, as the doctor informed them of good eating and exercise habits to keep them going through what was now officially her second trimester.

While Hank took care of scheduling their appointments for the next three months, Dawn cleaned up and tugged her sweater down over her baby bump. She caressed it a moment, then looked at the doctor. “Quick question?” she asked as she reached for her jacket.

Doctor Kumahor turned from her computer screen to blink attentively at her. “Yes?”

“What about…sex? Not the baby’s sex.” Dawn gestured toward reception and lowered her voice. “Sex with the father. I’ve been having some pretty strong…urges.”

The doctor nodded knowingly; apparently, this wasn’t a weird question. “It is very normal for you to feel increased sexual desire, and sex is perfectly safe right now. You don’t need to use a condom if you are consistent with one partner, but you should be aware of what is comfortable for you. I would say, nothing too strenuous.” She clasped her hands for emphasis. “Your body is devoting itself to your baby, but your baby will not pay attention to your needs.” The steepled fingers pointed her way. “ _You_ need to be mindful of those.” She smiled that kind, encouraging smile again. “That is one thing the father can help with right now.”

Dawn chuckled and thanked her, then went out to join her big, buff baby daddy waiting in reception.

Hank turned to her, passed her the envelope of printed ultrasound photos, and offered her his arm. “All set?”

Dawn sidled next to him with a smile and slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow. “Yep.”

As they walked through the automatic doors onto the semi-empty city street, Hank drew her close with a pull of his arm.

“Anything else you want to do, while we’re here?” he asked.

Dawn focused on a coffee shop sign a few doors ahead and hummed. “Hot chocolate?”

“With whipped cream?”

“Yes, please.” She smiled up at him. “And a brownie?”

Hank sent her a cautionary look. “The doc said to take it easy on the junk food.”

“Ginger cookie, then.”

He paused, hovering between a glare and a snicker. Finally, he said, “One of these days, I’m going to say no to you.”

She fluttered her lashes. “But not today?”

“Not today,” he agreed, and kissed her at her hairline. He yanked open the door to the coffee shop. “You want to come in, too?”

She glanced inside and scrunched her face at the snaking queue leading up to the counter. “I’ll wait out here, if that’s OK?”

“Back in five.” He stepped into the shop, saw the queue, and amended, “Maybe ten.”

Dawn giggled after him, then sat down on the shop’s metal window ledge to wait. She opened the envelope and drew out the ultrasound printouts, gazing longingly at the image of their baby. It might be too early for the doctor to identify sex organs, but Dawn had a strong impression she was looking at a little girl. There was no logical or evidential reason for making that conclusion, just a feeling.

She stroked her fingertips over the round of the baby’s head in the picture, murmuring, “My darling,” to herself. Abruptly, she recalled her mother’s voice saying those same words, with that same loving inflection, and fresh tears sprung to her eyes. Her mum would have loved this baby as much as Dawn herself already did.

“Do you feel it?”

Dawn looked up at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. Standing in front of her was a young woman, maybe mid-twenties, built tall, straight-backed, and slender, with long black hair that hung like a heavy beaded curtain from her crown.

“Excuse me?” Dawn asked.

“Your child.” The woman’s eyes were a crystalline blue; they narrowed into slits between dark, thick lashes. “It’s tainted.”

Dawn slipped the photos back into their envelope and rose to her feet, slowly. “I’m going to go inside, now,” she said, attempting politeness.

She turned for the door to the coffee shop, but the younger woman snatched her arm. Her fingers were like a vise

A protective flame surge in Dawn’s chest. “You need to let go.”

The woman’s grip tightened. “Give it to us!”

“Let go of me!” Clenching her fist gave Dawn a fierce burst of strength, and with a concerted yank she pulled her arm free. She shoved open the door of the coffee shop and rushed inside. Her heart was pounding as she spun to look back toward the street.

The young woman was gone.

“Hey.”

Dawn jumped. “Jesus!” she said, then covered her mouth in relief when she saw it was only Hank at her side, holding a little bag and a recyclable carry-tray for their drinks.

“You OK?” he asked.

She nodded quickly, though her attempt to speak was fruitless and she was gasping for breath behind her hand. Hank juggled the takeaway into one hand and used the other to lead her to one of the tables along the wall of windows.

“What happened?” he said softly. “You’re shaking!”

Dawn gulped a dry swallow and breathed through her nose, in an attempt to get control over her body again. It didn’t easily comply, her heart thumping and her limbs feeling like wet noodles. She’d had an adrenaline rush, like in a fight, and now she was coming down from it.

She swallowed again. Without the young woman to give substance to her reaction, she could only guess: “I think I had a panic attack.”

Hank set their tray on the table and scraped another chair up close to hers. “About what?”

Dawn bent her head into her hand and pressed her fingers to her brow. “Some weirdo on the street started talking about the baby.” She lifted her head with a weary frown as her breath came back. “It freaked me out, is all.”

Hank’s back went straight, and he shot a glare toward the street. “Who?” he rumbled, his pitch deep and his tone murderous.

Dawn rubbed his arm. “Babe, it’s fine. She’s gone. Forget about it.”

He grunted but thankfully didn’t run out the door fully cocked. A moment later, his gentler side asserted itself, and he put his arm around her. “You want to stay here a bit?” he asked her in a hushed voice. “Take five?”

She shook her head. “Can we just go home?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

She picked up the cookie bag, which she stuffed into her jacket pocket, and one of the drinks. Hank picked up the other and moved next to her as they exited to the street.

Dawn didn’t talk while they walked to the car, instead trying to pay attention to any ping of her senses. She’d put away her blue-and-white goggles and body armor more than two years ago, and, as a more or less regular civilian, that vigilante mindfulness that had saved her life countless times as Dove had waned as she’d slowly become simply Dawn. By the time they made it back to the car and were sitting safely inside, she felt drained.

Hank, meanwhile, seemed as alert and aware as if he’d just taken a shot of caffeine directly into his bloodstream. For a brief second, Dawn resented the primordial Chaos that flowed through him. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some of that magic coursing through her, as well?

She sighed and strapped herself into the passenger seat, then took a sip of her hot chocolate. It was still mostly warm and bittersweet, the way she liked it, and that gave her some comfort. She pulled out the ginger cookie from her pocket, too, broke it into uneven halves, and offered one half to Hank with a sheepish smile.

“I’m sorry if I overreacted back there,” she said.

Hank swapped his frown between her and the road. “Don’t be sorry.” He took the cookie in a single mouthful, then mumbled around some sputtering crumbs, “You’ve got good instincts; you need to trust ’em more.” He swallowed, and his voice cleared. “Everybody thinks strategy is so important, but what gets you through the thick of things is how you react to stuff.” He emphasized his point with an extra-long stare. “Sometimes, your gut knows better than your brain.”

When he turned back to the road, Dawn chuckled to herself. “You would say that.”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

She smiled. “A fact for which I’m eternally grateful.”

He smiled back, then returned to driving. Dawn rested her head against the back of her seat, content to watch him as she munched on the cookie.

It was the better part of an hour’s drive back to the house. When they arrived, Dawn was in high spirits again, the incident with the woman on the street like the remnants of a fading bad dream: faraway and nearly forgotten. She and Hank returned to talk about the baby, and standing at the kitchen island, they pulled out the photo prints once again, to gaze at them in loving wonder.

Hank’s long fingers traced the outline of their baby’s round head. “This is really happening,” he muttered.

Dawn blew a good-natured scoff. “You’re just coming to that conclusion, now?”

“It was an abstract before,” he said, like that was an excuse.

She gestured to her bump. “You call all this an abstract?” she said, but he clicked his tongue and gave her a _look_.

“You’re hardly showing.” He turned his body toward hers and leered playfully at her chest. “These, on the other hand,” he said, gently cupping the side of one of her breasts, “have gotten very impressive.”

She’d read articles about how such contact could bring discomfort at this stage, but she felt no soreness. Rather, his caress triggered an almost violent jolt of arousal that shot straight between her legs. She cloaked the sensation with a smile and slid her hand over the sizable distinction between his legs. “They’re not any bigger than this.”

“That’s only temporary,” he said, even as the hardness strained against her palm.

She pressed her lips together for a coo. “So, time’s a-wasting?”

“I wouldn’t go that far— _unf_!” he said, starting with a laugh but falling silent with a grunt when she thrust him against the refrigerator.

Hooking her fingers into the waist of his trousers, she pushed herself tall enough to capture his lips. He answered her kiss with an appreciative hum and put his arms around her. His willingness encouraged her to push further, and with a series of blind but deft motions, she flicked open his belt and button. She’d just unzipped him when he unlatched their mouths to ask:

“Do you want to go to bed?”

Dawn shook her head. “I want you here, like we used to do it.” She heard herself going breathy, felt her body getting warm. “All sweaty and wild,” she said, sneaking her hands under his loosened clothes. “Like there was no tomorrow.” She clutched his firm, rounded glutes, felt them clench under her fingers, and pulled their groins together.

Hank’s cock gave a decisive reaction, but he muttered, “We’re not like that anymore.”

Dawn tilted her head back, resting her chin nearly on his chest to look at him. “Yes, we are. Remember,” she said, squeezing his backside to prompt another bouncing reply from his front, “when we took out that ugly little H.I.V.E. cell under Rock Creek Park? Broke their bones and knocked them out and then chased their leader into the cemetery.”

“He thought he could hide out there in the dark,” Hank murmured. “But you spotted him.”

“And you grabbed his head and smashed his face into a marble headstone.”

The memory excited her. Hank, too, based on his wily, beaming grin. “Took out four of his teeth right there.”

Dawn smiled, too. “We tied him up, called it in, and ran all the way home, laughing like little kids.”

His voice went low. “You said Hawk and Dove didn’t need gadgets or powers to do what we did. We just needed to have each other.”

She nodded, squeezed him again, then pushed his clothes down to his thighs. They slid down further, but he didn’t move to pull them back up.

“Do you remember,” she asked, turning her voice into a velvety whisper, “what else I said that night?”

He must have done. His cock was striving, his nipples were hard under his shirt, and his nostrils flared like an animal seeing red. Her gaze seemed to cloud a little bit red, too. Before she lost that focus, she pushed and pulled and toed off her trousers and panties, leaving them in a little pile next to her feet.

“I asked you to fuck me,” she reminded, using the same words she’d done then, “right there in the kitchen, until we heard the wood thrushes singing outside the window.”

Hank looked at her, his brow smooth and his lips slightly parted. “Is that what you want?” he asked. To anyone else, he would have seemed calm and composed, but Dawn recognized the licking, leaping fire in his eyes. It called to a similar blaze burning inside her.

“Yes,” she said, a little bit ashamed by the plea in her voice, except at that moment he kissed her. Then he turned them about so they traded places, braced his hands under her arms, and lifted her up against the fridge.

Dawn threw her hands over the top of the door, tightening her arms to stay in place and hooking her legs around him. Meanwhile, Hank laid a hand on her hip and guided them together. Each new inch made Dawn whimper against his mouth, until finally he couldn’t move any deeper. He held there for a swirl of heartbeats, just kissing her with slow, quiet, tender smacks of his lips so that she very nearly relaxed on him. His hips drew back and his cock with them. She sighed, airy and throaty. Almost gone, he paused…then thrust forward with so much sudden strength that she yelped.

She clapped her hands around his shoulders, using him and the cold metal door behind her for leverage as he started to buck his hips in earnest. She turned her head away to let her gasping cries go free, clawing her fingers into his shirt and hair while he buried his face against the base of her neck.

She came in a swift and shuddering burst of release, like a rapid boil. Hank’s rhythm stuttered, then stopped, and he turned her face to his. His palm offered a cool relief against her cheek.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

Dawn nodded breathlessly.

“Is the baby OK?” His voice cracked with anxiety. “That wasn’t too much, was it?”

“No,” she assured him with a slow little swing of her head. “It was good.” She smiled, as much in love with his tenderness of now as with his wildness of a minute ago. “Just what we needed.” She stroked his face, grazing the corner of his mouth with her fingertips. “You OK?”

He snickered. “I feel a little silly standing bare-assed in the middle of the kitchen. But it felt nice to let loose.” His mouth widened into one of his unhurried killer smiles. “Almost makes me want to put on my wings again, see if I’ve still got what it takes.”

Dawn said with a pout of her lips, “You’ve definitely still got it.” She didn’t think it was possible for her to get aroused again so quickly, but just the thought of him in his Hawk cowl and body armor had her nerves tingling with anticipation. “Maybe we should dig out both our old costumes,” she said.

But he shook his head. “No.”

“What? It’d be cheaper than a wedding dress.”

Hank pressed his mouth to one side. “We can’t get married as Hawk and Dove. Besides,” he added with a carefree shrug of one shoulder, “I want to see you in a wedding dress. Show everybody we don’t need gadgets or powers to make it. Just each other.”

Dawn felt as if her heart might burst for him, and she cooed, “I love it when you’re sentimental.”

She caressed his cheek and kissed him. His hum stirred a fresh rush of excitement through her. She realized they were still in sex position and pulled away with a heavy-lidded look and a husky demand:

“Now, fuck me again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say? I wanted to write a sex scene. Also, Original Characters! Yay! Or maybe nay? You tell me. I'm always interested to hear.


	7. Just Us Girls (15)

The door to Donna’s converted warehouse loft flew open, but it wasn’t Donna who answered. Rather, Kory beamed at her from the apartment interior, causing Dawn to catch her breath in surprise.

“Hi, mama bird!” Kory stepped over the threshold and put her arms around Dawn in an unexpectedly intimate gesture of fellowship. She drew back just as quickly, her eyes sparkling. “You’re— what is it you humans say? Glowing.”

Dawn smiled. “Thanks.”

“And this outfit!” Kory tapped a slender hand to the shoulder of Dawn’s breezy blue maternity dress with its designed mesh overlay and wiggled her nose. “Cute!”

“Thanks,” Dawn repeated, still smiling. Despite any sublimated feelings of inadequacy, it was hard not to like Kory. “That’s a great outfit, too.” And it was: a daring, off-one-shoulder deep purple romper that accentuated Kory’s long legs, narrow waist, and busty top. Add some gregarious glasses and she could have passed for a funk rock fashion icon.

Kory let out a little groan as she shooed Dawn inside. “I’m just grateful to get out of that drab workout uniform once in a while.” She closed the door behind them, then strode forward with runway model confidence to lead the way into the main apartment. She spun her head round, her heavy curtain of hair flowing like a glossy wave, and grinned. “Not that Dick doesn’t get me out of that often enough.” She faced forward again. “But there are times when a woman needs to remind herself and everyone around her that she’s a _woman_!”

“Hear, hear!”

From around Kory’s strutting silhouette, Dawn caught a glimpse of Donna, who was dressed in more casual fare but looked no less stunning in a silky black blouse and a pair of cinched-waisted trousers that gathered at the ankles, leaving visible her painted toes and slip-on heels.

Dawn paused in her flats. “Wow. When you said we’d be going out, I thought you meant dinner, not a dance party.”

Donna and Kory laughed together like twins, striking Dawn with a twinge of envy she did her best not to show. Then Donna showed off her coordinated nails in a wave. “It’s just tapas and a bit of clubbing,” she said.

“Nothing too wild,” Kory added, though clubbing sounded pretty intense to Dawn.

Donna seemed to sense her trepidation. “This is our night: swinging, sexy, and single…for at least a few more weeks, anyway. And don’t sell yourself short. You are rocking that dress!”

Kory winked. “I’m surprised your man let you come out by yourself.”

Dawn couldn’t resist joining in. “My man knows who wears the pants in our relationship,” she said, making the two almost-sisters laugh again. This time, she joined them with a rippling giggle.

Donna slowed down enough to ask, “What’s the big balls-and-chain up to tonight, anyway?”

“Hank’s working on the nursery this weekend,” Dawn told them.

The other women crooned an “ _Aw_ ,” as one, then Kory said with a smirk:

“You trust him not to get into trouble, all by himself?”

“Do you trust Dick?” Donna shot back.

“Please.” Kory put on a pained face. “On a good night, it takes me only three tries to drag him away from work.”

“That’s our Boy Wonder,” Dawn said, catching herself for invoking Hank’s favorite taunt; Donna and Kory’s semi-catty playfulness was infectious.

Kory tucked her chin and lowered her pitch in a display of compassionate sisterhood. “If Hank needs some company, I’m sure Dick would say yes.”

Dawn smiled for the thought but shook her head. “That’s OK. Hank could use some time to himself.” She ran her palm over her baby bump, which was still subtle…if growing less so every day. “Pretty soon, that won’t be an option.”

Donna hooked her arm through Dawn’s. “Which is why,” she declared with a rousing upswing of her voice, “tonight, we celebrate!”

“Titans together, Titans forever!” Kory said, pumping her arm into the air, and in answer, the three of them broke into boisterous laughter.

The restaurant Donna took them to in The Loop was trendy without being too crowded, where they shared bite-sized delicacies on dainty china plates, and Kory and Donna raised elegant glasses a-swish with robust red wines. Dawn lifted her glass, too, though soda water with a splash of cherry juice and a decorative maraschino paled in comparison to her friends’ lustier choices. Mostly, it didn’t bother her. She’d long ago accepted her place among any party crowd as the hair-holding friend. Not that Donna or Kory would push limits to the point of porcelain bowl prayer; Donna’s Amazon constitution would put to shame someone twice her fighting weight, and Kory’s complicated Tamaranean biology kept her from feeling the adverse effects of any food or drink. Dawn, meanwhile, had to use the toilet as soon as they walked into the club.

“It’s over there.” Donna pointed to a wooden door on the other side of the dance floor, which seemed to shift and roll from the undulating bodies, swinging lights, and thumping bass. Even standing next to her, Dawn had to strain to hear Donna’s voice above the frenzied din.

“Do you want one of us to come with you?” Kory said, nearly shouting.

Dawn shook her head, made a face, and waved her hand, just in case Kory wouldn’t be able to hear the words. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’re going to dance!” Donna told her.

“When I come back,” Dawn agreed with another wave.

Donna thrust a shaming finger in her direction. “And don’t call Hank!”

Dawn just laughed, starting through the crowd toward the loo while a popular 70s dance track blasted through the club’s speakers, and Kory and Donna turned into gleeful, hopping dance partners behind her.

The women’s offered a brief, comparatively thoughtful respite from the noise and lights beyond the door. Sitting in her enclosed stall, Dawn took a few moments not only to release the pressure on her bladder but to enjoy the quiet. She’d forgotten how wild – and loud – a city’s social scene could be.

Hank preferred staying away from his traditional vice triggers like bars and clubs. It made for a quieter existence, though one he’d come to embrace over the last few years. Dawn had supported his decision from the start. Even if she did sometimes dip her toes back into the pool of cosmopolitan nightlife, Dawn enjoyed the serenity of their relative isolation, too. While the initial justification of their Midwest move had been to provide Hank with a firmer support for his sobriety, it had also offered them a deeper and more lasting intimacy than they’d been able to find amid the hustle and distractions of a DC or San Francisco.

After she’d washed up but before she opened the door to head back onto the dance floor, Dawn dismissed Donna’s warning and pulled out her phone. She considered just texting Hank but decided at the last moment to take a chance on hearing his voice. He picked up on the third ring:

“Hey, babe. What’s up?”

She smiled for his easygoing tone. “Nothing. Just wanted to say hi.” She could hear some sports announcer in the background, excitedly calling a play. “How’s the nursery coming?”

“I got the window frames done! You were right: the mint looks nice. Cozy.”

She grinned and hummed against the phone. “Yeah?”

“Our little baby bird is going to look at them and feel like it’s always springtime.”

Dawn pressed her palm over her heart and cooed. The women’s door swung open and she turned away to the corner, to keep her little bubble of privacy for a few moments longer. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. Now, go have fun. And slap Donna’s ass for me.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not doing that.”

Hank laughed wickedly before falling sweet once more. “Text me when you get in, huh?”

“OK. Send me a photo of the window frames?”

“You bet. I love you.”

Dawn’s heart fluttered. “Love you, too.” She stopped the call with a finishing smile. She paused to look at herself in the mirror above the trough sink and forced a party-ready smile to her lips. Then she lifted her chin, grabbed the door handle, and walked back into the loud, raucous fray.

The DJ stuck to the most irresistible dancehall hits, so joining in was easy. The hard part was keeping up with Kory, who spun and wiggled and romped like she was made of music and light. She grinned and laughed for every moment, too, seemingly without tire. Men and women dancers both drifted into a loose orbit around her, like a corps de ballet, and Dawn was struck by a childish pang of envy. Though, that disintegrated when a pair of lit-up guys on the make tried to muscle their way between her and Donna.

One of them actually put his hand on her, but just as Dawn was about to pull out a jujutsu downward block from her repertoire, Kory swooped in, grabbed her and Donna, and swept them toward the exit in a whirl so fast and twirling that Dawn thought the flows of their hair might tangle together.

They tumbled onto the street laughing, though even Kory lamented, “Why do some people think they can just barge into somebody else’s good time?”

Donna waved it off. “They were just a couple of drunk kids.” She grinned at Dawn. “I saw you getting ready to whomp your one.”

“If his hands went any lower,” Dawn agreed. “Or higher!”

Donna gestured to Dawn’s belly. “Obviously, you’re not interested in a night of wild sex.”

Dawn paused for a guilty second. “Unless it's with my boyfriend.”

“Do tell!” Kory said, green eyes aglow.

Donna groaned. “Don’t tell! I don’t want to think about Hank having sex. Or Dick, for that matter!” she said, looking at Kory. “It’s just…ugh!” She cringed her shoulders and shuddered. “No.”

Kory groaned back at her. “Humans! So many hang-ups.” She poked Donna in the arm. “You, my friend, need—”

“Don’t say it!” Donna warned her with a striking point of one finger. “Or I will never buy you doughnuts again.”

They got back to Donna’s apartment, where they enjoyed some late-night snacking and cozy hot teas conducive for talking and more teasing, particularly of Donna.

“Roy will be at the wedding,” Kory prodded.

“Roy has a daughter,” Donna said with a weary sigh.

“So? He’s cute.”

Donna pulled a face. “He’s a little too slutty for me.”

Kory turned to Dawn. “Would you tell her not to be so picky? She’ll listen to you.”

Dawn chuckled over her mug. “No, she won’t. Not when it comes to men, anyway.”

Donna swung her glare at them. “Why are the two of you ganging up on me?”

Kory shifted her shoulders. “We just want you to be happy,” she said in a gently coercive voice that reminded Dawn of her mum and which set off a little thumping of her heart.

Donna’s hardiness didn’t waver. “I don’t need a man to be happy.” She lifted her mug and mumbled around the rim, “Unlike some people I could mention.”

“Ouch,” Dawn said, sharing a look with Kory, who opened her mouth in an expression of shocked complaint.

“Look,” Donna said, suddenly serious. “Dick is one of my oldest, dearest friends. And I love Hank to pieces, just like I do Roy and Wally. But I’m OK being on my own. Really.” She waved her hands around the warehouse loft. “Right now, my life is about travel, and adventure, and my career. Yours is about training a team,” she said, gesturing at Kory before turning her hand to Dawn. “Yours is about making a family. And that’s great! But we don’t all have to follow the same path to happiness. If I find a guy or have a baby, it’ll be in my own time.” She shrugged. “And, if that doesn’t happen for me, that’s OK, too.” She stretched out both hands, to reach for both Dawn and Kory. “I don’t want either of you worrying about me. I sleep just fine at night.” She snickered. “In fact, I love having a bed to myself.”

Kory chuckled. “Yeah. I’m looking forward to that, tonight.”

Dawn nodded. “Me, too,” she said, and when both women stared at her, she hunched her shoulders. “What? Hank takes up a lot of space!”

They kept talking until almost midnight, when Dawn had to prop her cheek on her hand and even Donna and Kory were yawning. So, they called it a night and decided to meet in the morning at the not-unholy hour of nine. They did make brave smiling faces for a quick photo by the door before Donna said goodnight.

“You want to share a cab back to the hotel?” Kory asked Dawn. “Or walk?”

The brisk night air gave Dawn a burst of fresh energy. It wouldn’t last long, but she said, “I can walk.”

Kory nodded and slipped her arm around Dawn’s, like she’d do with Donna. The gesture came as a surprise, though not an unwelcome one.

“Thank you so much,” Kory said without prompting, “for letting me be part of all this. Your wedding, and tonight….”

“Sure. You’re a Titan,” Dawn said with a bump of her shoulder.

Kory hummed. “When I came here, I was alone. Then I found Rachel, and Dick. And Donna. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I belonged somewhere. That I was part of a family.” She paused her stride and turned to Dawn, her green eyes wide with honesty and genuineness. “You – and Hank and your little one – are part of that family, as well.” She smiled. “And you’re still one of Donna’s best friends.”

Dawn held a breath. “I have to admit,” she said after letting that air go, “that I’ve been a little jealous of you.”

Kory pulled back. “Why?” She sounded hurt. “Because of Dick?”

Dawn dismissed that with a shake of her head. “Dick and I have always been too similar, over-thinking and analyzing everything. We both need a push from people who are willing to trust their guts more than their head.” She pinched her mouth tight a moment, then said, “It’s Donna.”

Kory remained silent, but Dawn could sense her thoughtfulness. An urge to unburden herself bubbled in Dawn’s chest, and she said:

“Donna’s the sister I’ve always wanted! Smart, supportive, always there when you need her.” She slumped her shoulders, thinking not of Donna but of Holly. Holly, who’d said she’d be there for Dawn at least on the big day but who hadn’t been in touch in weeks. To keep her own emotions under control, Dawn hadn’t pushed it, but the glaring difference between Donna and the young woman who shared Dawn’s own blood pierced her heart at a depth Dawn hadn’t thought possible.

She sighed, feeling foolish, emboldened, and forgiving all in the same heartbeat. “Then, suddenly, you were there, and I wasn’t the only other woman on the Titans anymore.” She looked at Kory while she snickered at herself. “I know it’s stupid—”

“It’s not stupid,” Kory told her, full of emphasis and earnestness. She smiled. “I felt something like that about you, too. That I needed to live up to the standard you’d set. Especially with Donna.”

A break of teary emotion came to the top of Dawn’s sinuses. “I’m sorry!” She put her arms around Kory and pressed her cheek to Kory’s shoulder in a hug. “You’re amazing, and you don’t need to live up to anybody.”

“You’re amazing, too!” Kory laughed around the words, a sound of relief. Her embrace was warm and strong, like Donna’s but different, and Dawn felt extra-foolish for her earlier misgivings. “I may not be Donna, but I’m always here if you need me.”

“Oh, my God.” Dawn stepped back from their hug wiping her eyes. “Stop making me cry!” She sniffed and laughed in the same breath. “My hormones are all over the place as it is.”

Kory put her arm around Dawn’s shoulders. As they started walking again, she tilted her head close for a conspirator’s whisper. “So, tell me: Is the sex right now crazy-wild for you, or what?”

Dawn leaned into Kory’s merriment, delighted to have someone with whom she could share some of the more salacious details of her sex life. Kory was equally forthcoming with her own occasionally shocking stories, and the two of them laughed the rest of the walk back to the hotel. In the lift, they parted with fond goodnight wishes and a promise to meet in the morning to walk back to Donna’s flat.

In her private room, Dawn took a hot shower, brushed her teeth, did a measurement of her belly in the mirror, and settled into the cushy bed. Propped against the pillows, she sent the photo of her, Donna, and Kory over to Hank, noticing then that he’d already sent her some pictures from the house: one of just the finished painted mint-green window frame, and one of him in front of it, bare-armed, brawny, and grinning in accomplishment.

Dawn chuckled to herself. “That’s your daddy,” she reminded their baby. “He loves you.” She flicked over to the other photo. “That’s Donna, and Kory. They love you, too.” Then she slid down in the bed, set her phone aside, and closed her eyes. Still smiling, she laid her hand on her belly and said, “Mummy loves you most of all, more than anything. You know that, don’t you?”

She stroked her belly, intellectually aware that the baby was still too small to make its interest or awareness known with any movement. But a feeling of great love both filled and surrounded her, and she fell asleep knowing that in so many ways, she wasn’t alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pausing on some of the weird drama from last time to take a look at the other women in Dawn's circle. While this chapter may not do a great job of passing the Bechdel test overall with all of the talk about men, I feel like these women *would* talk about men. Most of that talk is in the genuine interest of themselves and their friends, anyway. But what did you think? I'm always interested to hear. :)


	8. Mummy's Darling (18...and counting)

Dawn sat staring at the list of unanswered messages on her phone. She knew their progression of frustration and desperation by heart. Because she’d written them all over the last three weeks, and she’d spent the last three days reading and re-reading them while she tried to decide whether or not she should just give up on her sister forever.

“This game sucks.”

She looked up toward the other end of the sofa, where Hank sat glowering at the TV and jabbing buttons on his game controller. “So, why do you keep playing it?”

“It’s the only one I’ve got that I haven’t beaten,” he said between frantic jabs that seemed to make his entire body judder. “And Roy swears by it.”

“You’re not Roy,” she said, imagining for a moment Roy Harper sitting in Hank’s place. Before she could make the comment that sprung to her mind, Hank said it first:

“Thank God.”

A clashing sound came from the game, followed by a mournful brass tune, and Hank threw up his arms. “Oh, come on!” He blew an aggravated snort and tapped some more buttons. “Fuck this shit,” he grumbled, and swiped up the remote control to flick off the TV.

“Giving up?” Dawn asked.

He smiled at her, surprisingly calm. “For now.”

She laid her phone on the floor. “Me, too.” She scooted to the inside of the sofa and beckoned him to her with open arms.

Hank crawled up next to her, stretching along her outside like a hard, hefty body pillow. He threaded his fingers through her hair at her temple, kissed her forehead, and murmured, “You want Donna?”

Dawn tucked her chin to look at him. “For what?”

“For the wedding.” He tipped his head in the direction of the floor. “Instead of worrying about whether or not your sister will show up. I’m sure Donna’d be happy to do it, and I can always just grab Roy or Dick. Probably Dick,” he considered with a snicker, “since the witness is supposed to be competent.”

Dawn smiled briefly for his joke. “My sister’s still got a week,” she said, though saying it didn’t convince herself any more of Holly’s reliability than it was likely to convince Hank. She sighed and murmured, “I wish my mum was here.”

Hank let out a long breath, too. “What do you think she’d have thought of us?” His body cringed with a light chuckle. “Would she have kicked my ass for getting you pregnant before we got married?”

“She might have dropped a couple of comments about propriety.” Dawn closed her eyes and nestled her head into the hollow of his shoulder. “But she’d have loved being a grandmother.” She scratched her fingernails over the texture of his shirt. “And having a strapping son-in-law to do things like open jars and move furniture for her.”

Hank’s chest rumbled. “Just what every parent wants for their kid: a furniture-mover.”

They giggled together, then Dawn asked, “What do you think your mum would have thought of us?”

He paused to consider that, then said, “She was always good about letting me and my brother make our own decisions. For better or worse. Plus, she’d have adored you: a good, strong, smart woman to keep her bad son in line.”

Dawn frowned at his self-judgment. Then, she hugged him. “I’m sure she didn’t think you were _bad_."

He shrugged against her. “I think she knew, somehow, about the Chaos. Not about the magic exactly, but she and my brother both knew I had something inside me. Something wild and…angry.” His arms bulged for a brief squeeze then, and she heard a warm affection in his voice. “But don’t worry. Our baby won’t be like me.”

She craned her head up to give him a smile. “I hope they’re at least a little like you.” She turned the tenderness into a teasing grin. “To make all the trouble worth it.”

He snorted. “What trouble?”

“All that playing hard to get.”

Hank’s sternum vibrated with another rolling hum, and he wriggled his torso in an envious display of narrow-waisted flexibility, to put them nearly face-to-face. “Well, you got me, now. What are you going to do about it?”

“Revel,” Dawn said, and held his face for a kiss before he could make reply.

They cuddled and nuzzled for a bit, then made plans for the next day in the city. They made dinner and had a bath. Then, just before bed, Dawn dug through the back of her lingerie drawer for the old powder blue nightie she’d bought years ago. What used to be a flouncy bodice now barely contained her breasts, to the point that she worried the delicate silk button clasp holding the sides closed would suddenly break apart. But Hank undid it gently, leaving the straps over her shoulders so that the sides fell around her like a pair of gossamer wings that fluttered every time he bounced her with his hips. After, she lay down next to him on her side, still naked save for those silken wings, and they both fell asleep.

Hank slept soundly, less like a baby than a bear hanging onto the last days of winter hibernation. Dawn rose before her namesake, though, stirred from sleep by a dream of her mother.

She got up and bundled herself into some roomy sweats, then went to make some coffee. It was quiet outside, and as she sat on the porch swing with her mug cupped between her hands, she clinked Hank’s mother’s ring against the ceramic and thought of her own.

In her dream, she and her mum were walking together across a great green field that looked like Hampstead Heath in London but felt like Kenilworth Park in DC. Dawn was pushing an old-style pram with her mum strolling alongside, laughing and lovely and bright. While she had a feeling that Hank was with them, Dawn didn’t see him, just as she couldn’t remember what she and her mum had talked about. Only that her mum seemed so happy and full of life, and that, when her mum lifted a baby from the pram and pulled the tiny body to her bosom, she’d crooned with bursting affection something very much like, “ _My darling girls_.”

Dawn touched her belly for the growing life within. She’d been stressing over Holly the last few days, but the feeling of her dream seemed to be about the baby, not her sister. She bit down on a smile before it fully broke. While she hadn’t wanted to pin her hopes one way or another too early, she did secretly wish for a specific outcome.

“Morning,” Hank said, and laid a hand on her shoulder as he tapped a pressing kiss to her crown.

Dawn put her hand over his and tipped her head back. “Did I wake you?”

“I smelled the coffee.” He sniffed and came around front. “Can I sit with you?”

“Sure.”

She shifted aside to make room, then snuggled up to his heat. He put his coffee cup arm around her and leaned against her sleepily. He traded the cup between hands, though he didn’t move away after.

“Why up so early?” he asked before taking a laggard sip of brew.

“I had a dream.”

He shot her a wary, suddenly awake look. A dream had triggered the magical mystery of his Chaos connection, but that had happened more than a year ago, and Hank’s dream had been of a very different and peculiar caliber from hers.

“About my mum,” she clarified.

He sat back, not quite relaxed but no longer alarmed. “Good dream?”

Dawn smiled to spite the dim ache of sadness she always felt when thinking about her mother. “Yeah.” She told him about the dream, what she could remember, and ended with the sharing of the words that had woken her.

“I guess she could have been talking about me and Holly,” she said. “But it really felt like she was saying our baby was a girl.”

“Maybe we’ll find out for sure today.” Hank grinned. “But a girl would be awesome.”

“Really?” Dawn beamed, too, mostly from surprise. “I thought you’d want a boy.”

“Let’s be clear: I’m going to teach any kid of mine how to throw a perfect pass and the best ways to break through an opposing team’s offensive line. But there’s something about having a girl…! I don’t know,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “Maybe I’m romanticizing it. But all the women I know kick all kinds of ass! I want to be part of that, you know?” He narrowed his eyes. “Teach her how to kick ass as much as any boy. Just like her mom.”

She cuddled against him. “Just so long as you’re there for the tea parties and the heartbreaks and the crazy hormones, too.”

“Good thing you’ve given me lots of practice,” he said, earning him the roughest shove Dawn could muster.

The intel came relatively early based on all the articles Dawn had read, but the ultrasound performed by Doctor Kumahor confirmed what Dawn already felt she knew: a little girl was taking shape inside her. She and Hank grinned and giggled through the news and the rest of the appointment. According to the doctor, everything was progressing smoothly.

Their joy flowed out with them onto the street, where they continued to talk in giddy whispers and through excited laughter. Dawn swore Hank’s pitch went up half an octave when he squealed:

“We’re having a _girl_!” He let out a sigh that put his voice back to normal. “I know we’re getting married next week, and we should be thinking about that, but right now, I kind of don’t give a shit.”

Dawn giggled. “I know! I just want to go buy a bunch of baby stuff. Clothes and carriers and _toys_!”

“I’ve got an idea.” Hank settled his hands on her shoulders and lowered his head. “We need to pick up the rings,” he said gravely. “But what do you say, while I take care of that, you head over to Nestor’s and find something cute and perky and stupidly expensive for the nursery?”

“Oh, my God, yes,” she said, clasping her hands under her chin. “You’ll meet me there?”

“Give me, like, twenty minutes.”

Dawn gave a squeal this time, and cringed her shoulders close to her ears. “I love you!”

“I love you, too.” Hank gave her a quick peck on the lips, then like a soldier on a mission, he stepped away with a snapping posture and a point over her head. “Go!”

She hurried off in the direction of Nestor’s, one of the city’s boutique baby shops, whose storefront they’d often passed over the last several weeks but had never gone into, for fear of the prices. On closer examination, the dollar amounts on many of the accoutrements, toys, and clothes weren’t terrible. Not within their normal price range, but manageable once in a while and for a special occasion. Dawn considered today to be both, and she walked through the aisles taking in the gleefully excessive displays with a sense of overwhelming delight.

As Dawn admired a collection of crib mobiles, a young woman walked over. She was a willowy blonde in a blue and white dress that resembled the Disney-fied Alice in Wonderland. She smiled and said, “Congratulations.”

Dawn stroked her belly. “Thank you.”

“You must be excited.”

“I am.”

The girl nodded at her. “Your baby is very special.”

Dawn returned a halting nod of her own. She hadn’t noticed it at first, but the girl, while very polite, had an oddness about her, as if she were one of the mad denizens of Carroll’s topsy-turvy Wonderland.

“Touched,” the girl said, reaching her hand toward the baby.

Dawn stepped back, stumbling into another person as firm in their stance as Hank, but far too small to be him. She turned then and gasped, as she came face to face with the dark-haired young woman who’d come to her on the street several weeks ago.

“Tainted,” the brunette said, in the same threatening way she’d done before.

Dawn thrust out her arm, to keep the brunette at bay. “Don’t touch me!”

The brunette girl snarled. “Give us the child!”

“Verity,” the other girl said in a quiet scold. “You’re alarming her.”

Dawn spun toward the blonde. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The blonde girl showed both palms. “My sister is a bit…over-zealous. We mean you no harm. But your child—”

“Help!” Dawn shouted, holding one hand over her belly and the other out in front of her as she whipped back and forth between blonde and brunette. “Somebody, help me!”

The blonde girl took a step backwards. “You’re not ready,” she said sadly.

“Prudence!” the brunette – Verity, apparently – hissed. She came to the blonde girl’s side. Dawn hadn’t noticed before, but they were almost like twins, save for the color of their hair, and of their eyes. Verity’s were pale blue, while Prudence’s were like amethysts.

“She’s not ready,” Prudence said again, staring straight at Dawn but speaking to Verity. “But she will be. Soon.”

Dawn squinted. “What are you talking about?”

Prudence put her palms together. A flash of light blinded Dawn a second, and she shut her eyes. When she opened them again, both girls were gone. Up and down the aisle, there was no sign of Prudence or Verity. Based on the way they milled and chatted, no one else in the store seemed to have heard or seen anything in the last two minutes, either.

“What the fuck…?” Dawn muttered to herself.

“Hey.”

She whirled. Hank was behind her, looking as normal and sane and ignorant of what she’d just experienced as everyone else in the shop.

She pressed her hands to her temples, wheezing, “Oh, God.”

Hank, abruptly guarded, took her in a loose supportive hug. “Babe, what’s wrong?”

Dawn knew better than to try to shrug this off or cover it up with lies or excuses. She grabbed his arm. “Someone’s after our baby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My original thought was to chronicle this story in weeks...but now that we're getting into the marble-y meat of the plot, I don't think that will fly. There's too much that is going to happen too quickly to cover it all in that kind of chapter break. Unless you want to read a 15,000-word chapter at a time, which I don't think many people would like to do. So, we'll pick up next time without waiting for a new week in Dawn's motherhood journey. OK?
> 
> Now that that bit's out of the way, what did you think? Are you willing to stick around? Or have I gone off the deep end (again)? Let me know!


	9. Chaos and Order (still 18)

Dick arrived first because they’d called him first and he had access to the most means, though Donna, with fewer miles to travel, was close on his heels to the house. With Kory reportedly busy coordinating the young Titans back at the Tower before her own departure, Dawn expected it to be just her, Hank, Dick, and Donna working the start of the case. It came as a surprise then when, later the same afternoon of Donna’s arrival, a third rapping sounded on the doorframe.

Dawn looked at Hank. “Who could that be?”

Hank shrugged and got up from the sofa. “One way to find out.”

Dawn turned, a word of warning on the tip of her tongue; the blonde girl in the shop had been polite enough, too. But when Hank swung open the door, she saw the tension in his back relax and he stepped half over the threshold to take the newcomer in his arms.

“Hey, man,” Hank said in the gruff, croaky voice he used when his tenderer emotions threatened to overwhelm him. “Glad you’re here.”

Rising from the sofa, Dawn saw it was Roy at the door, in comfortable driving wear and carrying a hefty camouflage hunting bag at his side. He lowered the bag to the floor as he met Dawn’s gaze, then offered her a grin.

“Hey, little mama,” Roy greeted, as if this were a simple get-together between friends and not a threat that was scaring her half out of her mind.

“You didn’t have to come all this way,” Dawn began, when he cut her off with a shushing noise.

“None of that. Just because I don’t run around in a mask anymore doesn’t mean I’m not still a Titan.” Roy bowed his chin, his green eyes steady but like a kind of emerald fire. “We look out for each other.”

Dawn nodded, suitably chided.

“Where’s Lian?” Hank asked.

“Lian,” Roy declared with refreshed quick-talking bonhomie, “is with Ollie and Dinah, who, no doubt, are spoiling her rotten at this very moment. If history repeats itself, which I’m sure it will, they’re giving her chocolate and jellybeans and whatever else she wants, then they’re going to hand her back to me full of sugar and defiance, and I’m going to have to be the bad guy who tells her she needs to eat her vegetables and go to sleep at her regular bedtime. Ollie says he’s forgiven me for being such a problematic shit when I was a kid, but I know better.” He pointed a finger toward his temple. “This is his subtle revenge. Don’t worry, though!” he added with a wave of his hand. “She’ll be fine in time for the ceremony. Being your flower girl is a _huge_ point of pride for her.”

Dawn put both hands over her belly, as much to comfort herself as to do so for the little life inside her. “Assuming we make it that far,” she muttered.

“You’ll make it,” Roy said somberly. “I’m here to make sure of it. Dick and Donna, too.”

Hank jerked a thumb toward the guest room side of the house. “They’re in the nursery, if you want to join them.”

Roy shot a look over Hank’s shoulder, then made a face. “I’m sure they’ve got it covered. Besides, us non-magic, non-money types need to stick together.” He sidled close to Dawn. “Now, about this nursery,” he said with a new smile. “Do you know, yet, if you’re going to paint it blue or pink?”

His easygoing confidence and goodwill coaxed from Dawn a tiny giggle. “We painted it green,” she informed him as she led him over to the sofa to sit. “But we know it’s a girl.”

Roy cooed. “Congratulations! Little girls are fun,” he said, nodding knowingly. “Who else have you told?”

Dawn bit her lip. “You’re the first one who’s asked.”

Roy’s happy expression became subdued a moment, but it bounced back readily. “Try not to take it personally. They get a case in front of them,” he said, gesturing toward the nursery, “and they lose sight of everything else. I can’t tell you how many times I had to explain, ‘I can’t take a baby on a stakeout!’ I mean, they expected me to just go running over rooftops with Lian strapped to my back.” He shrugged. “Where would I put my arrows?”

Dawn chuckled softly for his antics. “I don’t think we’ll ever go running over rooftops again after this,” she said, shaking her head, but Roy wagged a contrary finger her way.

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past you two to figure out a way to trade off between diaper duty and drug lord take-downs. And I’m not saying you’d have to sit back with your nestling all the time! I’m sure Hank would appreciate rocking the baby instead of clocking some crooks.” He winked up at Hank. “It’s a lot easier on the bod, buddy, trust me,” he teased, and Dawn covered her mouth for more laughter. Hank, on the other hand, exploded.

“This isn’t a fucking joke!” He towered above them, fists at his sides and glowering at Roy, whose chuckling was cut off so swiftly it was as if Hank had used a blade to slice his humor in half.

Roy sat back, muttering, “I know.”

“Somebody’s after my kid. My kid!” Hank shouted, his teeth bared as he banged his knuckles against his chest.

Roy put up both hands, showing his palms. “I’m not making light of that,” he said, his voice still hushed. “I was just trying to break the tension.”

“How about I fucking break _you_!”

“Hank!” Dawn scolded, throwing out her arm between him and Roy.

Hank whirled on her. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Dawn! It was supposed to—!” But he choked on whatever else he was going to say. Scrunching up his face, he stomped for the door and thundered his way outside, leaving silence in his wake.

Dawn turned her focus from the door to Roy, who still seemed a bit shaken. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, feeling a twinge of resentment for having to apologize for Hank, a chore with which she’d become well acquainted over the years.

Roy shook his head and waved his hand in the air. “It’s OK. I was laying it on kind of thick.” He glanced over his shoulder at the door. “You want me to go after him?”

“No. No, you shouldn’t have to do that.” Dawn pushed herself up from the sofa with a brief grimace; her baby bulge was already making it more difficult to move quickly. “I’ll take care of it.”

She paused to toe on some slip-on trainers she kept by the door, then padded onto the porch. Hank hadn’t gone far: he was standing in the middle of the clearing in front of the house, just staring out toward the far-off mountaintops. In comparison to the expanse of space, he looked almost small, and Dawn felt a sharp pang of love for him despite her irritation. She went down the steps and called his name.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said again without looking round at her. “He said it would be OK.”

Dawn moved toward him. “Who?”

“Dick!” Hank spun, his face red and wretched with angry tears. “He said I’d be fine. He said I wouldn’t pass my Chaos on to a kid.” He threw out his arm, shouting again. “Now, there are crazy disappearing bitches out there after our baby, calling her _tainted_!”

Dawn put her hand to her head, regretting of a moment the decision to share that particularly upsetting detail. “This isn’t Dick’s fault,” she muttered.

“Don’t you think I know that? I _know_ this is my fault—”

“God damn it, Hank!” she shouted back. “This isn’t about you. This is about our baby, and her safety.”

“That’s what I’m saying! You think we’d be in this mess if I weren’t her father?”

“I don’t know!” Dawn said, throwing up her arms. “More importantly, I don’t care. We’re in it, now, and the only way we’re going to get through it is together. Because no matter how smart and resourceful and powerful Dick and Donna and everybody else might be, _you_ are the only one I trust one hundred percent with our baby. _Because_ you’re her father. Now, would you _please_ -” she said, squeezing her eyes shut and talking through her teeth, “-get it through your thick skull that I love you and I need you, but I am fucking _pregnant_ right now, so I can’t go running after you every time you decide to throw a tantrum about stupid shit that _doesn’t even matter_!”

She was screaming by the end, her fear and frustration boiling into an eruption that left the muscles in her clenched hands aching and her throat raw with rage. Though, something about that release felt…good. When she opened her eyes, Hank stood blinking at her, stupefied at her outburst.

She sighed, preparing for a gentler resumption of conversation, when she felt an internal twitch, like the flutter of a bird’s wing against the bars of a cage, and she gasped and held her belly.

Hank was holding her in a heartbeat. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Dawn paused before another breath, waiting for a repeat of that strange but wondrous feeling. “She moved.”

“Holy shit,” Hank wheezed. “Really?”

Dawn raised her head and smiled. “Yeah. Right here,” she said, taking his hand and pressing his palm against the side of her belly just below her ribs.

They waited a minute in suspenseful silence. Then Dawn hummed and said:

“She’s quiet, now.”

“I hope she’s not scared,” Hank murmured.

Dawn chuckled softly. “Maybe she just didn’t like us fighting.”

Hank blew a tiny breath against her forehead. “I don’t like it, either. I’m sorry I freaked out,” he said, easing close to put his arms around her in a loose embrace. “I just keep thinking, if you were with somebody else, you wouldn’t be in this mess right now. Neither would our baby.”

She rubbed her cheek against his chest, listening for his pulse. Its steady thump answered hers and, somewhere deeper inside her, that of their little bird. “Except then she wouldn’t be our baby,” she reminded him. “And I’m glad that she is.”

“Me, too,” he whispered.

Dawn pushed herself away, to look him square in the face. “So, I want you to stop,” she told him firmly. “Stop brooding and obsessing over what could have been if I weren’t me or you weren’t you or we were with other people. I’m _with you_ , Hank.” She grasped his hand. “And I want you with me. For better or worse.” She smiled and squeezed his fingers. “All the days of my life.”

He made a blushing little smile, too, and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. “To hell and back,” he agreed.

She nodded and leaned up to kiss his lips, holding there for a long press that he returned without desire but with devotion. They were still holding hands when she lowered herself to her heels, and she used that connection to tug him toward the house.

“Ready to go back inside and apologize to Roy?” she asked.

He groaned but let her lead him. “Yeah.”

They walked back into the main room together, to find Roy still on the sofa. Dick and Donna were there, too, Dick holding court in front of the fireplace and Donna sitting on the ottoman like a Rodin statue. Dick’s expression was unreadable, but Donna, being more open-hearted, gave away some caution.

“Hey.” Hank broke the pervasive quiet as he paused at Roy’s shoulder. “Sorry for what I said—”

“Forget about it,” Roy told him, and waved to Dick. “We’ve got bigger issues.”

Dawn sat down on the sofa, turning her full attention to Dick.

Hank came to sit beside her on the arm and rested his hand on her shoulder. After a moment, he said, “Don’t keep us in suspense.”

“It’s magic,” Dick announced. “Which is not my area of expertise. Luckily,” he went on before anyone could interrupt him, “I managed to get in touch with Zatanna, who was able to share some insight on the Fallen Sisters.”

“That’s their name?” Dawn asked, leaning forward with some modicum of gratitude; a name removed some of their mystery and thus some of their power. “The Fallen Sisters?”

Dick bobbed his head. “Apparently, they’re not unknown among the circles of high magicians.”

“So, _what_ are they?” Hank asked.

“They’re…agents of Order?” Dick said, sounding unfamiliar with the term, though the words set off an alarm in Dawn. Hank, too, by the way he sucked in his breath and tightened up beside her. “From something called…” He glanced at Donna. “What was it, again?”

“The Ninth Age of Magic,” Donna said slowly. “And the last war between Order and Chaos.”

“Fuck,” Hank muttered.

Dawn reached to her shoulder to give his hand a squeeze. “We were told the Lords of Chaos and Order were destroyed.”

“They were,” Donna confirmed. “But there are agents and avatars of both sides who still carry with them some of that magic.”

“Like Hank,” Roy guessed.

Even as Donna nodded again, Dick waved a peremptory hand. “Not quite,” he said. “Hank’s just a conduit, a carrier. He can’t actually wield the magic inside him.”

Hank grunted. “I love it when people talk about me like I’m not even here.”

Dick shot him a look of apology but went on without saying so. “These Fallen Sisters are different. They’re real magic-users. Not on Zatanna’s level, but enough to be dangerous.”

Hank blew a snort. Dawn squeezed again and asked, “What does any of that have to do with us?”

“When the Lords were destroyed,” Donna said with careful articulation, “it caused the last war to be drawn in a stalemate. The Fallen Sisters want it won. To do that, they need to shift the balance of power to their side. They need a new Lord of Order.”

Dawn drew back, letting go of Hank’s hand to cross both arms over her belly. “But…Hank’s magic comes from a Lord of Chaos: T’Charr.”

“Hank’s not the only one,” Donna reminded. “You have a connection, too, to Terataya. And she was a Lord of Order.”

“But I don’t have any magic!” Dawn protested.

Donna frowned. “Maybe not to use, or even to feel. But Zatanna believes it’s there. And about this sort of thing, I’d tend to agree with the world’s most powerful magician.”

Dawn remembered Zatanna telling her and Hank about the Lord of Chaos T’Charr and the Lord of Order Terataya. How falling in love had caused them to break from their respective ranks to promote a new principle, one made from equal parts Chaos and Order, working in conjunction to create a better, stronger Unity.

That quickening flutter came again, and Dawn gave another short gasp. She closed her arms in a hug of her own body. “Our baby…!” She felt all eyes on her, and Hank moved his arm around her shoulders. She looked up at him and said, “Our baby’s both. Chaos _and_ Order.”

“That’s what we think.”

Dawn tossed her gaze toward Dick. His expression told her there was more. “But?” she prompted.

He sighed. “A baby of both powers doesn’t fit the Sisters’ preferred narrative.”

“So, what are they planning to do?” Roy asked. “Extract the Chaos magic out of her somehow?”

“Like fuck they will!” Hank said.

“They said I wasn’t ready,” Dawn recalled. “But that I would be soon.” She flicked her gaze over to Dick. “I thought they were talking about me, but maybe they were talking about the baby?”

Dick looked as powerless as she felt. “It’s possible. Nothing about magic is clear.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do?” Hank said.

Dick’s assurance returned. “We wait,” he said. “Strengthen our defenses.”

Hank scoffed. “Fuck that! I say we take the fight to them. The best defense is a good offense!” he said, but Dick waved him down.

“Nobody should go anywhere right now.”

“But those Sisters are out there,” Roy said, voicing some support for Hank. “Looking for Dawn. They’ve found her twice already!”

“They won’t find her here,” Dick said, shaking his head.

“What’s to stop them?” Roy asked.

Dick took a breath. “Rachel,” he said.

As if summoned by the name, the air in the room crackled with an intense energy almost like a giant static accumulation. A pinpoint prick of darkness above their heads billowed into a cloud of writhing, odorless black smoke, and within that mass Dawn made out the outline of a petite and slender shadow before it solidified into Rachel’s physical form. She hovered there in the air a moment, arms out and toes in pointe position as if on a cross. Her eyes flared once in her encircling cloud. Then, they drooped closed, her body followed, and she fell.

“Jesus!”

Hank launched himself from the sofa at the same time that Dick jolted forward, both of them with arms outstretched to catch her before she hit the floor. Rachel didn’t weigh much, but the two of them shared her in a carry as they lowered her to the rug. Dawn could just see Rachel’s face around Hank’s arm as her eyes flickered open.

“Rachel?” Dick said. “Are you OK?”

Rachel groaned and grimaced. “Tired.” She rolled her head until her hooded gaze came Dawn’s way. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

Dawn scooched from the sofa, easing onto her knees next to Hank. She laid her hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “It’s all right.”

Rachel wasn’t one to show much emotion, but her pale lips formed a tiny smile. “Brave girl,” she said softly, her eyes still heavy-lidded. “Just like your mother.”

As Rachel breathed a little sigh of fatigue, Dawn sat back on her heels. She turned to stare at Hank, whose wide-eyed focus flashed once to her belly before he raised his gaze to hers.

“Holy fuck,” he whispered, and while Dawn said nothing, she had to agree. Because Rachel hadn’t been talking to her. She’d been talking to their baby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what? I'm not going to apologize. This story and my timeline are crazy and convoluted and I don't care anymore. I'm having fun and I'm going to run with it.


	10. Nothing Like Old Times (still 18)

“You shouldn’t have teleported,” Dick told Rachel. Standing above her next to the chaise in the nursery, he wore his stern leader frown and had his arms crossed over his chest, but Dawn could hear the faint warble of worry in his voice.

“You said it was urgent,” Rachel replied matter-of-factly.

Dick blew a little sigh through his nose. “I expected you to wait for Kory, so we could all regroup at the same time.”

Rachel blinked up at him. “I am here, now. Unless you would prefer that I teleport back to the Tower…?”

“Don’t get smart with me,” Dick said.

“I am simply asking you to make up your mind. Hank, please!” Rachel turned Hank’s way a look that bordered very closely on annoyance as he finished tucking a blanket around her. “I am not in metamorphosis; I do not need a cocoon.”

Whereas Dick held the stance of a serious warden mentor, Hank’s one-kneed crouch was more reminiscent of a kids’ coach. Instead of telling Rachel to go out and give things her best shot, though, he echoed Dick’s warning. “You’re exhausted. When I carried you in here, you could barely move! You need to recharge.”

“Hank’s right,” Dick said. “Get some sleep, then we can concentrate on work.”

Rachel rolled her eyes, a rare lapse into the trappings of her younger age. “I do not require sleep for revitalization.”

“So, meditate,” Dick said, his tone full of long-suffering weariness. He headed toward the door. “We’ll be out here if you need us.”

Hank stood up and started out, too. He paused at Dawn’s side. “You coming?”

“Give me a minute,” Dawn muttered.

Hank nodded and moved on. As he got to the door, Dawn heard him snicker to Dick. “You said I was right.”

“Even a broken watch,” Dick murmured before both men’s voices faded into the distance of the living room.

In the fresh quiet, Dawn approached the chaise. She made the excuse of fluffing the pillow behind Rachel’s back to take a temporary seat on the edge of the cushion, where she asked in a hushed and anxious voice, “Did the baby really talk to you?”

Rachel’s normally neutral gaze flickered with benevolence. “Words are unknown to her, yet. But I can sense her feelings. Instinctive but fierce, like a bright flame.”

A wave of warm sincerity flowed out from the girl on the chaise, and Dawn laid her hand on the side of her belly. “I’ve started to feel her, too. Moving, I mean.”

“She is going to be all right,” Rachel said in her quiet, steady voice. “We will help her. And you.”

“Thank you.” Dawn touched Rachel’s arm. “Now, I hate to sound like the boys, but you really should try and get some rest. I think we’re going to need you at one hundred percent.”

Rachel’s pale lips pursed together a moment. Dawn thought she might protest some more, but she set her head back on the pillow with a subtle tilt of her chin.

“Would you like me to bring you anything?” Dawn asked. “Or turn out the lights?”

Rachel shook her head. “No, thank you. And you can leave the lights, please.”

Dawn nodded and rose. She was almost out the door when Rachel called her name softly. “Yes?”

“I like the green,” Rachel said, and her tiny smile showed itself. “It’s very happy.”

Dawn smiled, too, and pulled the door mostly closed behind her, to keep out the sounds from the rest of the house.

Dick was waiting for her at the end of the short hall leading outside the guest rooms. He’d resumed his crossed-arms stance but wore one of his bewildered-cum-amused smiles. “How are you so good at convincing people to do stuff they don’t want to do?”

Dawn stopped for a low chortle. “Hank’s given me a lot of practice over the years.” She pointed toward the great room and started to walk that way when Dick put out his hand.

“Roy told me to ask you about the baby,” he said softly, then chuckled. “He also told me not to tell you he’d told me to do that, but I like to keep things honest. So, do you know? If it’s a little boy or a little girl?” He grimaced. “And are you willing to tell me?”

She grinned. He’d accused her of being manipulative, but what did he think that expression of his did to people? “Little girl,” she murmured.

The cautiousness in Dick’s gaze became surprise, then delight. “Congratulations.” He lifted a shoulder close to his ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask earlier—”

“It’s OK—”

“-but I tend to laser-focus on a case,” he went on with no shortage of self-recrimination. “A lot of times, to the point of ignoring everything else.”

“I’m aware of that,” she said, only half-mocking. “It’s also what makes you a good detective.”

He pulled his lips together. “Probably never be the world’s greatest, though.”

She twitched her nose. “I’d rather have a less than perfect detective who’s still a good friend than the world’s greatest detective who’s also a paranoid twat.”

Dick’s eyes bulged in sudden shock before he broke into sputtering laughter more befitting an insolent teenager than the man who’d once aspired to taking over the mantle of Gotham’s Dark Knight.

“It’s true,” Dawn told him.

“I’m not arguing,” Dick said, still chuckling. When he came to a lull, he passed her a strange but affectionate look. “You know, I had a dream, once, a long time ago, about you being a mom.” He smiled. “You were great at it.”

Her heart pattered with renewed confidence, and she felt a grin break free. “Really?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Hank was there, too,” he said before she could ask. “He was very helpful.”

Dawn laughed softly under her breath. “Wow.” A wave of tears rose to her lashes, but she didn’t let them spill free. “You don’t know how much it means to me, to hear you say that.”

Dick put his arms around her for a quickly comforting hug, and Dawn was grateful not for the first time that he’d never been and would never be Batman.

After a moment, he pushed her away, to give her another one of his serious looks. “I’ve asked Hank to get his wings ready,” he said. “Just in case. But neither of us want you suiting up. It’s not that we don’t think you can handle it—”

“I get it,” she said, saving him the effort of making any excuses, sexist or otherwise. She shrugged. “I doubt I could fit into my Dove suit right now, anyway.”

He offered no reply to that, not that he could have given her one that would have satisfied. She spared him again from trying by shooting him her own determined look.

“But don’t expect me to lock myself in a room while everyone else goes hunting for those witches or whomever it is who’s behind this. Because that is _not_ going to happen. My baby, my rules.”

Dick accepted her warning with a short nod and a compact smile. “That’s fair.”

Dawn let him off the hook then, lifting her head as she walked out of the hallway and into the main area of the house. Hank, Donna, and Roy were clustered in the little workspace set off from the great room, huddled around the table desk and a drape of red ribbon-like decorations laid upon it that Dawn recognized as Hank’s Hawk wings. She slowed her pace, taking the time to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“Nobody told me to bring a costume,” she heard Roy complain.

“Some of us don’t need costumes,” Donna said.

“Some of us aren’t Amazons. How long has it been since you put on your wings?”

“About two weeks,” Hank grunted.

“Really?”

“It was a sex thing.”

“Oh, my God!” Donna exclaimed, stepping back from him. “Why would you tell us that?”

“I’m not ashamed of it! I look _great_ in this suit.” Hank had turned enough so that he must have caught Dawn and Dick’s approach in his peripheral vision.

“Hey,” he said, his timbre dropping into a more serious register as he shifted their way. “Rachel asleep?”

Dick humped his shoulders. “I don’t know about asleep, but she’s resting. In the meantime, the rest of us should take stock. Donna’s got her lasso—”

“Never leave home without it,” Donna said, and flashed Dawn a wink.

Dick turned to Roy. “You brought your bow, right?”

“And two quivers,” Roy replied. “One regular, one trick.”

“Classic,” Hank interjected, and they shared a slapping and snapping handshake.

Dick tilted his head toward the guest rooms. “My gear’s in the case in the nursery—”

“And the Hawk comes fully equipped,” Donna finished for him.

Roy gave a loud, proud clap of his palm against Hank’s back. “No assembly required.”

Dawn pulled her lips into a stiff smile. “Sounds like you’re all good to go,” she muttered, trying to keep the saltiness out of her voice.

Still standing in front of the desk table, Hank turned around to it. When he turned back, he extended to Dawn the pair of small, handheld spear-point steel fighting knives in their white carbon-alloy sheathes that she’d used to wear strapped to her costume’s belt.

“Even a Dove’s got claws,” Donna said with a smirk.

Dawn let a fuller smile come through as she took the daggers from Hank’s hand. They shared a brief touch and moment before Roy broke the spell with a more immediate question.

“What have you got to eat around here? Because if we’re hunkering for the duration, we’re going to need more than just gadgets and weaponry.”

Donna jerked her thumb toward the front of the house. “I’ve got some emergency rations in the car.”

“Jesus, this isn’t Black Hawk Down!” Hank scolded. “We’ve got food. Just nothing prepped for six.”

“We can throw together some pasta and greens for tonight,” Dawn suggested.

Roy snapped his fingers and glided toward the kitchen. “I make a killer chicken Florentine!”

“Let me show you my salad hack,” Donna said as she followed him.

“Don’t touch anything!” Hank said, going after them double-time. “I’ll take care of it.”

“I know my way around a kitchen!”

“Yeah, well, this is my kitchen, and I’ve got everything the way I like it.”

While their playful arguing continued, Dick chuckled. “Some things never change.”

Dawn guessed that the antics were to keep their moods light and tensions from fraying too much. Donna had told her stories of when the Titans were teenagers, before Dawn’s time, of dance parties, rowdy wrestling matches, and the general cavorting that used to happen before looming battles. As Dove and Hawk, she and Hank had dispelled pre-job jitters by indulging in quieter civilian routines like simple meals, strolls through the park, and sometimes – a lot – straightforward sex in their bed. It was all a façade, though, even now, a way for them to temporarily block out the pressures to come. They all knew it, too, because when Rachel rejoined them, a somber and disquieting pall settled over them once more.

“Do you need us to do anything?” Dick asked her as she finished the last of her meal.

Rachel wagged her head. “I only need a place to concentrate. A cloaking incantation is not difficult, but it will take time to weave one this size.”

“So, we should stay out of your way?” Hank said.

“To put it bluntly,” Rachel said. “Yes. The nursery is quiet,” she suggested. “If you do not mind me taking it.”

“That’s fine,” Dick answered. “Donna, you can have the guest room, and Roy and I’ll stay out here.”

Roy bounced his ginger brows. “We can zip our sleeping bags together.”

Dick snickered. “Or one of us could take the couch.”

“One of you can take first watch, too, while you’re at it,” Donna said.

Dick divvied up the night shifts between himself, Roy, and Donna, turning to Dawn and Hank only at the last. “Sleep tight,” was all he told them. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

Arguing with them wouldn’t change their minds. Dawn didn’t feel like doing so anyway. More important tonight was having her lover and baby’s father with her instead of him pacing the house all night, triple-checking locks and grounds cameras while she’d tossed and turned in their bed without him.

After a hot shower to help relax her nerves, she sat down on the edge of the bed and unfurled the ponytail of her hair with one hand while she fingered one of her daggers in the other. She balanced the dagger in her palm, turning it with some compact movements of her fingers. At first, the weapon wobbled, but with a few minutes’ practice, she regained some of the old Dove dexterity and had it flipping and rolling smoothly in her loose but ready grip.

“Still got it.”

She looked up at Hank’s praise. In his t-shirt and jogger pajamas and his hair sticking up in damp, disobedient spikes, he leaned against the doorway to the master bath. His posture told her he’d been watching her a while.

“Some things you never forget,” she said, shooting him a little smile. She set the dagger on the bedside table with a quiet click, right beside its mate.

“Good to know.” He pushed himself from the wall to approach the bed. Rather than moving around to his side, he lowered himself next to her and touched her hand.

“Listen,” he said in a slow and purposeful murmur. He kept his gaze on their hands as he curled his fingers around hers. “I’m going to stay with you as long as I can.” He licked his lips, and his grip contracted for a brief squeeze. “But if it comes to a fight, you’ve got to put your players where they’ll do the most good. We both know that, for Hawk, that’s the thick of things.”

“Hank,” she said, cupping his cheek to get him to look at her.

“So, keep those daggers close,” he went on. “And stick by Roy. He’s one of the best distance fighters around. I give him a lot of shit, but he’s smart. As smart as Dick.” He met her eyes at last. “Maybe even as smart as you.”

“Hank,” she said again. She bowed her head to his, peering beneath the bend of her lashes with a smile. “Remember when you were in rehab, and you asked me not to give up on us? I’m asking you to do the same, now.”

“That was different,” he said, shaking his head.

She stopped him with her hand. “We got through that together. We’ll get through this together, too. I know I can’t be on the front lines. And I know that you will do _everything_ you can to keep our baby safe. But don’t set us up to fail before we’ve even begun.”

“They’re magic, Dawn. More magic than me.” He cringed his broad shoulders. “I don’t know how to fight that!” He slumped, sighed, and shook his head again. “And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

She rubbed the hard, prominent bone of his cheek with the soft side of her thumb and smiled. “Henry Alan Harwin Hall,” she said, and when he rolled his eyes, she took his face in both hands. “Has there ever been any fight we couldn’t win when we stuck together?”

“No,” he mumbled.

“And do you really think, after everything we’ve been through, that I’m going to let a couple of weird magical sisters take away our happily ever after? Do you?”

His worried frown melted into a more relaxed if grudging smile. “No,” he repeated.

“There’s a lot we don’t know,” Dawn allowed. “And tomorrow, things could get crazy.” She smoothed the spikes of his hair and climbed into his lap. “But tonight,” she said, “we’re safe, and we have each other, and I want you.” She kissed him then, firmly and with the fullness of her whole body, and that put an end to his misgivings.

They made tender, earnest love, in just one position and quietly for sake of their privacy. Though, when they lay down together afterward, she noticed welts in Hank’s skin the shape of her fingernails. Dawn worried over them with coos and kisses, but Hank shushed her and brushed her hair, lulling her into a sweetly easy sleep under his arm.

She woke with daylight and alone. Beyond the corridor outside the bedroom, she could smell the aromas of hot coffee and freshly baked scones, which meant Hank was in the kitchen. She could also hear the rise and fall of conversation and laughter, which meant the others were with him. A gathering for breakfast, apparently.

Dawn pulled on some comfortable lounge pants and half-zipped up a hoodie over her night shirt. She did a quick brush of her teeth and combed her hair to be at least somewhat presentable, then walked into the kitchen in the middle of some childish bickering.

“I like my eggs over-easy,” Dick said with a teasing lilt.

“You’ll get your eggs the way I make ’em, buddy,” Hank replied around a snicker.

Dawn padded over to the percolator counter. “Since when did our kitchen become a diner?”

“Hank asked us what we wanted to eat,” Roy said.

“I asked _Rachel_ what she wanted to eat!” Hank corrected. “The rest of you just jumped on my hospitality.” He paused in his pan-jiggering to tap a kiss to Dawn’s crown. “I made scones,” he murmured.

Dawn shook her head. “Just coffee, right now.”

Both Dick and Donna tipped their cups toward Dawn, too. She topped them off with some black brew and had just poured her own when Hank asked:

“So, what’s the plan?”

Dick drew a breath and sat straight. “Rachel’s cloak should buy us some time.”

“The incantation is a variation on a demonic glamour,” Rachel said across the rim of her coffee cup. “It should veil the Sisters’ magical perceptions, so long as it stays intact.”

“It’s not perfect, and it won’t last forever,” Dick said as if translating. “But at least we won’t have to worry about the Sisters sneaking up on us while we’re asleep.”

Hank delivered Dick’s slightly messy over-easy eggs on a plate. “You didn’t answer the question,” he said, holding steady at the island with both hands spread flat on the counter.

Dick stabbed at a yolk and pushed it around over the whites. “Kory and Gar are on their way, now. When they get here, we’ll coordinate recon.”

Hank shrugged. “Why wait?”

“I’ve got surveillance and tracking tech, but no way to deliver. For that, we need Gar; he’s the only one of us who can hit the right spots without bringing any unwanted attention.”

“Too bad Wally’s not here,” Roy mumbled behind his fist.

Dick made a face. “The League’s busy with…something else, right now.”

“Figures,” Hank muttered.

“Gar will be fine,” Dick said, putting an end to any argument on that topic. “Once the tech’s in place and we know it’s working, we’ll draw the Sisters out of hiding. We’ll lock them down and transport them to S.T.A.R. Labs in San Francisco, where Karen’s got access to a magic containment facility. With any luck, the League will be back by that time, and we can contact Zatanna, after which the Sisters become her problem.”

He finished there, his gaze resting on Dawn. She glowered back at him, having filled in the gaps in his description with the only logical conclusions. They were solid, of course, but also opportunistic. So much for him not being like Batman.

Hank voiced the question Dick had probably hoped he wouldn’t think of. “How do we get the Sisters to show their faces?”

Dawn waited a moment for Dick or any of the others to jump in. No one did, leaving her to turn to Hank alone. “We give them what they want,” she said with a little shrug.

Hank frowned while the gears worked in his head. After a few seconds, she knew her words had registered when his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped into a gawp. “No!”

“Nobody _likes_ the idea,” Donna began.

“So, think of a better one!” Hank said.

Dick extended his palm. “If there were any other option, believe me, we’d take it.”

Hank whirled Dick’s way, his face scrunching with rage. “You’re not using Dawn as bait for those bitches!”

Both Dick and Donna sent her imploring looks across the kitchen island, and Dawn closed her eyes to compose herself. Despite her own sense of betrayal, these were their friends. And this was the only plan they had.

“Take it easy,” she told Hank, brushing his sleeve. She let her hand rest there on his arm, the muscle of which bulged menacingly under his shirt before he jerked it away.

“You can’t seriously be considering this!” he said, the delicate trust they’d shared the night before splintering into anger. An anger borne of fear for her and their baby, she knew, though that was of little reassurance. “This is our baby’s life, Dawn. This is _your_ life—”

“I know that,” she snapped back. “But it has to be me, Hank. I’m the only one we know the Sisters can track, which means I’m the only one who can get them to show themselves. Once we get them to do that, I swear, I will let you tear them into as tiny pieces as you want.” She spit a little breath between her teeth. “I’ll probably help you!” She shook her head. “But we can’t do that unless we’ve got them. And we can’t get them without this plan.”

His lips were clamped tight, and his nostrils flared with furious snorting. She could practically _see_ the Chaos burning in his gaze. And, God, how she wanted to feed it! But a more rational part of her – the strategist part, the Order part – was grateful to see his blazing rage abate.

He still flashed a glare at Dick. “I’m not letting Dawn go in alone.”

Dick raised his palms. “I wouldn’t let that happen, either.”

“And there had better be space in this plan for me to break some faces.”

“We’re not going to kill anybody,” Dick warned.

“No worries there.” Hank parlayed his snarl into a wrathful sneer. “That’d be too easy.”

Dawn let them stare it out a minute, more unwilling than unable to take a side, even if that would resolve this faster. She didn’t like being put in the position of lure, no matter how much tactical sense it made. On the other hand, Hank’s galloping knight routine was getting tiresome.

A sharp rap on the front door jolted everyone into a start. Save for Rachel, who remained sipping at her coffee with supreme restraint.

“That’s probably Kory,” Donna muttered, sliding from her seat.

Hank turned back to the stovetop, where he began to viciously scramble some more eggs. “This fucking sucks.”

“It’ll be OK,” Roy said softly, while Dick tried to restore some of their lost confidence.

“We’ll make sure you’re covered from all sides,” he started to tell Dawn.

She gave a weary wave of her fingers at him. She knew this was all they had. She understood they’d do everything they could to keep everyone safe. She’d make sure Hank would stay cool and controlled, just like she’d always done. She’d hold them together. But then she heard Donna open the front door, and someone who was not Kory demanded:

“Who the fuck are you?”

Dawn spun toward that brusque, accented voice with a gasp that almost made her heart stop. “Holly?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe too much indulging in the old guard, but what's the point of fanfiction if not for having fun with what you write? Oh, and Happy New Year 2021!


	11. Daggers (still 18)

There she stood, skew-footed and cock-hipped in the doorway, with the bright daylight shining behind her in a way that seemed to set her red hair aflame. Holly. Her sister. She looked skinnier to Dawn than the last time they’d been together, her former gymnast’s suppleness replaced by a – what? runner’s? – tight muscularity. The self-assurance that had made her such a rebel as a girl was still there, though it was harsher, somehow. Less mischievous than simply cynical, like a survivalist. Still, when she smiled, she looked as beautiful and as free as a bird taking flight. Until she spoke.

“Fuck! Your tits are _huge_!”

Any heartfelt sentimentality was sucked out of Dawn’s lungs by Holly’s chortling vulgarity. “I’m pregnant,” Dawn said, pulling the sides of her sweater into a bunch over her chest.

Holly rose on her toes to look past Dawn’s shoulder and called, “Hey, Hank! Hope you appreciate what your eager little spunk’s done to my sister’s body.”

“Always nice to see you, too, Holly,” Hank grumbled.

“Wish I could say the same,” Holly replied with a saccharine sneer. Her expression became less insolent then, and she put on one of her better-bred smiles. “Oh! Hello there.”

Dawn followed her sister’s look, sent to either Roy or Dick, both of them still sitting dumbfounded at the island. No matter which one Holly had focused on, Dawn didn’t give her time to act. She grabbed her sister by the arm and hustled her away from the kitchen, covering Holly’s attempts to be flirty with a constant string of _No-no-no_ ’s until they were firmly out of sight in the bedroom.

“He’s a bit of all right,” Holly muttered, craning her head over her shoulder.

Dawn shut the door firmly behind them and whirled on her. “What are you _doing_ here?”

Holly stared at her. “You asked me to come.” She grimaced for a mocking mimicry of Dawn’s voice. “’You’re my sister. I really want you to be there when I get married.’”

Dawn clapped her hands to her mouth, wheezing behind her fingers, “You’re here for the wedding!”

“Of course, I’m here for the wedding! Hang on.” Holly pointed in the direction of the other room and squinted her eyes. “Is that party of slack-jawed weirdos out there not here for your happy hitch day?”

“No. I mean, yes.” Dawn groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling her sense of control unraveling. Why did her sister always make it so hard for her to concentrate? “I mean, they’re part of the wedding, but we’re dealing with a little something different, right at the moment.”

“Like what?” Holly asked, dropping the final consonant like a sarcastic chavette.

A low, steady tap on the door and Hank’s muffled request for her attention offered Dawn some breathing room. “Yes?” she called.

“Everything OK in there?”

“Everything’s fine.”

“I only ask because there’s that thing we’re supposed to do today, and we kinda need to know where we’re going with that.”

“What’s he talking about?” Holly asked, probably referring to Hank’s leading murmur.

Dawn’s innards gave a twist. She held up her finger and told Holly, “I’ll just be a minute.”

She opened the door and squeezed herself through into the hall, leaving Holly looking flummoxed in her wake. Dawn shut the door behind her again, holding the knob firmly.

“Dawn?” Holly cried, mostly aghast. She started to rattle the knob on the other side; Dawn jerked backward with a particularly forceful yank.

Hank blew a fatigued sigh. “Really?”

“I’m dealing with it,” Dawn said, jerking again under Holly’s force.

“Open this door!” Holly’s shout was stifled but fuming. “ _Dawn_!”

“Just a minute!” Dawn called back to her. There was one more concerted tug, the sound of a muted kick, then Holly’s audible huff of capitulation to her current plight.

“I don’t know why you don’t just tell her,” Hank muttered. “If it were my brother in there, I’d tell him.”

Dawn narrowed her eyes. “This is not even remotely the same situation, and you know it.” She leaned toward him for a hissing whisper. “How is she going to feel when she finds out that I kept it a secret that I ran around in a costume fighting C-list supervillains all those years?”

Hank leaned in, too, for a sizzling mutter of his own. “Well, she’s going to figure out that our lives are a lot more than just groundskeeping and trips to the grocery when _Kory_ shows up. Not to mention this Fallen Sisters thing.” He flapped his hands toward her belly. “And our magic baby! Who also just happens to be your sister’s niece.”

The realization of that fact hit Dawn like a brick. The threat of the Fallen Sisters plus Holly’s unexpectedly early arrival had completely thrown her off balance. While she’d lamented the loss of her mother because no mum meant no grandmum for the little life inside her, she’d forgotten that Holly was family, too. Not just to her but also to their baby. She and Hank had friends – wonderful, loving, caring friends – but Holly was blood. The last blood either of them had.

“Oh, my God.” Dawn’s voice was crushed to a hush under the weight of her guilt. “You’re right.”

“Sorry,” Hank mumbled, as though in tune with her shame.

“I need to talk to her.” She was about to turn and open the door when a mechanical roar passed overhead, rattling the windows in their frames. She threw a look of new alarm at Hank. “What was that?”

He shrugged. “At a guess? I’d say it’s the fucking jet.”

Dawn dropped her forehead against her palm. “Oh, God,” she said again.

Hank blew another sigh. “Look,” he said softly. “I’ll back you up on whatever you decide. But we need to tell Dick and the others where we’re at.” He bowed his head. “You want to scrap the plan for now, hold off for a day or two?”

“No.” She raised her head again with a quick and deliberate shake. “Our baby’s safety comes first.”

He nodded, then looked pointedly at the door. “What about…?”

“I’ll deal with Holly.” Dawn waved a hand at the rest of the house. “Can you deal with…all of that?”

“OK,” he said, and eased away. “I’m on it.”

Dawn watched him go with a smile. “Thanks,” she said before she turned the knob on the bedroom door, opened it, and shut out the rest of the world with its closing.

It was quiet within the bedroom, and cozily dim; the western side of the house didn’t get a lot of light. Still, Dawn could plainly see Holly sitting on the edge of the bed. Her sister was quiet, too, almost subdued as she pondered the dagger in her hand.

Holly looked up at Dawn’s approach. “You keep these next to your bed?” she said, flicking the dagger’s pommel upright. Her voice was steady but with an edge to it, like the balanced blade.

Dawn shuffled to the bed, lowering herself silently and carefully, as if Holly might burst off into flight. “It’s complicated.”

“I’ll bet.” The dagger landed back on the bedside table with a tiny clatter, and Holly sighed. “You don’t have to tiptoe round me, you know. If you don’t want me here, you can just say that. I’m a big girl; I can take it.”

Dawn was struck a moment by how much she sounded like Hank when he’d used to drift into his old querulous moods. She took the same tack with Holly that she’d done with him, edging close and keeping her voice slow and low. “Of course, I want you here. Things are just a little bit crazy, at the moment.”

Holly stared down at the space of bed between them. Her voice became hushed, tentative. “Anything I can do?”

Dawn pinched her lips into a brief, tense smile, then shook her head. “I’m not sure there’s anything anybody can do.”

Holly’s head came up, her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

It was Dawn’s turn to lower her gaze. She plucked at the woven fabric of the blanket beneath them as she tried to sort out the right words to help her sister understand. “There are these women,” she finally muttered.

“What women?”

“They call themselves the Fallen Sisters. They want our baby.”

Holly snorted. “Did you tell them to fuck off?”

Dawn coughed a humorless little laugh. “It’s not that simple.”

“Sure it is. You tell them religious nutters or whatever to mind their own fucking business. This isn’t the Middle Ages; you and your boyfriend can fuck and have as many babies as you want. And if they don’t leave you alone, you’ll take a knife to their knickers and slice them in two from the bottom up. Or I will.” Holly snatched the dagger from the table. “Look! I’ve got one right here.”

“Holly,” Dawn said, laying her hand upon her sister’s gripping fist.

“I know you think violence isn’t the answer, but sometimes, it’s the only answer those holier-than-thou fanatics understand.”

Dawn shook her head. “It’s not a religious thing. At least, not in the way you’re thinking.”

“So, what is it then?”

“Our baby,” Dawn said. “She’s special. I know all parents say that, but this is different. She’s… She’s magic.”

Holly’s face blanked. “What?”

“Magic,” Dawn said again; the word came easier a second time. “Specifically, part Chaos and part Order." She took a breath. "They were sides in a metaphysical conflict that lasted for millions of years. But there was a Lord of Order, Terataya, and a Lord of Chaos, T’Charr, who fell in love and wanted to prove that the two sides didn’t need to be at war all the time. That Order and Chaos could work together and be better for it. They chose me and Hank to be their agents here on this plane, and, well, we fell in love, too. Now, we’re having this baby, who’s like a living embodiment of what Terataya and T’Charr believed in. But these Fallen Sisters want to take her away and do…something to change the balance of power that she represents. And I can’t let that happen.”

Holly’s expression had remained impassive throughout Dawn’s rushed explanation, but when a waiting silence fell between them, she frowned, then opened her mouth, then scrunched her face in mute disbelief.

Dawn spoke for her pause. “I know it sounds hard to believe,” she began.

“It sounds bonkers!” Holly told her. “ _You_ sound bonkers! I mean, magic? Lords of Chaos and Order? And this char and taramosalata—”

“Terataya,” Dawn corrected. “And it’s T’Charr, with a hard T at the front—”

“Oh, my God, do you hear yourself?” Holly grabbed Dawn’s arms and leaned in close. “Are you in some sort of a cult? Is that who those people are, out there? Do you need me to get you out?”

“No. Those are our friends! They’re helping us.”

“Help?” Holly blew a disgusted scoff. “They’re going to help you fend off a couple of cosmic crazies?”

“We’ve done this sort of thing before.” Dawn backtracked. “Well, not this _exact_ sort of thing—”

“What you mean, we?” Holly said, her gaze constricting once more with suspicion.

Dawn took a breath and straightened her posture. “I am,” she said, filling her voice with purpose, “the Dove.”

Holly just blinked at her.

Dawn tried again. “As in, the Hawk and…?”

Still, Holly made no reaction.

“DC’s vindicating vanguard,” Dawn prompted.

Nothing.

“The Capitol crimefighters? Bolstering birds of a feather?”

Not a tic.

Dawn sighed. “It’s not as impressive or well-known as Batman and Robin, but…we tried.” She smiled hopefully.

Holly’s mask broke at last, into an incredulous glower. “You are bonkers,” she declared, and stood up from the bed in preparation for a final exit.

Dawn got up after her. “Holly, wait—”

Her sister spun with a whirl of red hair. “You expect me to believe this shite?”

“You think I could make this up? I know it sounds mad, but it’s true. Every last bit of it.”

“Including you being a caped crusader?” Holly gauged her with a fierce up-and-down look and a swipe of her hand. “You, with your ballerina poise and textbook manners and following all the fucking rules?”

“Believe it or not, yes.”

Holly lunged in, her teeth bared to the gums. “Then why didn’t you save Mum?”

Dawn stiffened with a gasp. Tears sprung to her eyes, and she opened her mouth to protest, but her tongue – like on that terrible day – proved useless.

“She died _with you_ ,” Holly said, jabbing her fingers into Dawn’s shoulder with each emphasized word. “On _your watch_.”

Dawn juddered her head. “I- I couldn’t—! It was an _accident_ —”

“She had to see _you_!” Holly’s face was as red as her hair, now, and streaming with her own tears. “Her perfect darling Dawn.”

“She wanted to see me dance,” Dawn blubbered helplessly. “Before she went back.”

“She wouldn’t have fucking gone back at all if she’d stayed with me!” Holly shouted, spittle flying. “But it was your last performance of the season. And she was _so proud_ of you,” she said through a grimace. “The fucking White Swan! Always the star, always her favorite.”

Holly’s punishing blame sliced through Dawn’s heart like a knife, making her hiccough and sob until all she could do was shake her head and cry.

“Now, you and your boyfriend and your stupid baby are fucking _magic_?” Holly taunted. “I bet you think Mum’d be proud of that, too. Well, fuck you. Fuck all of you,” she said, and charged for the door. She yanked it open so hard that it hit the wall with a loud thunk and a splinter of plaster.

She’d rounded the hallway before Dawn thought to go after her. To apologize, to concede, to placate – anything to relieve the pain in her soul caused by the echoing emptiness and anger between them.

Holly had stomped past the kitchen and was nearly through to the porch when Dawn got to the great room. Everyone was gone except for Rachel, who was still sitting at the kitchen island with her coffee, and Hank, who was doing dishes at the sink. Both of them looked up to watch Holly’s storm-out, but neither moved to intercept. Dawn didn’t blame them; she’d have wanted to stay out of it, too, if that option had been available. She hurried after Holly barefooted, crossing the threshold onto the porch. Only then did Rachel shout something:

“Dawn, no!”

A moment later, just as she was about to follow Holly down the steps, Rachel grabbed her arm and spun in front of her.

“You need to go back in the house!” Rachel said, her eyes wide.

Even that small show of emotion brought Dawn to a halt. “What?”

Rachel gave her a push. “You can’t leave the confines of the house,” she said quickly. “The cloaking incantation doesn’t extend past its perimeter.” Another push. “Please!”

Dawn stumbled backward across the hump of the doorway, her fear for Holly replaced by an abrupt disbelief. “You mean, I’m trapped here?”

“Only until we apprehend the Sisters,” Rachel said, as if that made this situation any easier.

Dawn shot a look over the girl’s shoulder. “But—!”

Hank moved around them with a weary wave. “I’ll get your sister,” he said as he pulled on his running trainers. “Stay here with Rachel.” He went out the door sighing under his breath, but that was all before he jogged after Holly.

Dawn watched from just inside the door as Hank caught up to her sister. There was some unintelligible arguing and some dramatic gesticulation…but Hank didn’t throw her over his shoulder, and Holly didn’t kick him in the groin.

“What a mess,” Dawn muttered to herself.

“It is not your fault.”

Dawn laid her hand on the doorframe, only half-listening to Rachel; the girl had returned to the kitchen, where she started to make a fresh pot of coffee. “Where’s the jet?” Dawn asked, just to make conversation while Hank and Holly continued to argue in the open area in front of the house.

“The others went to establish the triangulation perimeter,” Rachel said.

“You didn’t want to go with them?” Dawn asked.

“I must remain here, to maintain the integrity of the incantation.”

Dawn hummed. “At least I’m not the only one.” She glanced back toward Rachel, but her gaze fell on a pile of small electronic contraptions emblazoned with Dick’s Nightwing emblem. “Are those for the triangulation?”

“Yes. They are signal transponders. We will need to install them here, as well, as soon as the others return, but Richard believes the metropolitan circle is more important.”

“Great,” Dawn muttered as she returned her attention to the outside.

Hank and Holly’s vehement exchange had become what looked to be a calmer conversation. They were no signs of affection or even friendship between them, but when Hank gestured to the house, Holly’s response was only a visible huff. Her hands were in loose fists and her arms were straight as rods, but at least she wasn’t flailing or shouting any longer as she marched back toward the steps. Holding steady at the place where she’d been, Hank met Dawn’s look and mimed a shrug before beginning his own trudge back to the house.

Holly pushed past her with a blazing glare but said nothing. She flopped onto the sofa like a sullen teenager, a mood of hers that Dawn remembered well and knew not to poke. Instead, she turned to Hank, who took the steps up the porch two at a time in a drained but steady gait.

He was just inside the door when the world exploded in a flash of blinding light and a boom that shattered the glass in the front windows. Dawn felt Hank’s body slam into hers, then a second impact as they crashed to the floor together halfway into the great room. Somehow, he’d managed to roll himself beneath her, so when they fell, she landed on top.

Prudence’s voice cut through the ringing in Dawn’s ears and stopped her heartbeat cold. “So. Here’s where you’ve been hiding.”

Dawn flung a look over her shoulder. Just beyond the outline of the door, Prudence was walking up the steps in stately slowness. Verity was a pace behind her, a coiled scourge dangling from her hand like Donna carried her lasso. Looming behind both of them was a third woman built tall and wide enough that she’d have to stoop to make it through the doorway when she got there. Which would be in less than a dozen steps.

Hank practically threw Dawn off of him, shouting, “Rachel, get Dawn out of here!”

“Where?” Rachel said as she came to their side.

“Anywhere!” Hank cried, already on his feet and charging for the Sisters, his hand in a ready fist.

Prudence and Verity stepped aside, leaving their third to grab Hank by the neck in the middle of his run. He made a great gulping sound, scrabbling at the big woman’s wrist even as she lifted him off his feet.

Rachel began to rise in her black Raven cloud. But Verity snapped her whip, and it leapt out like a thing alive, slamming Rachel into the wall next to the fireplace, where she crumpled to the floor in a groan.

“Stop!” Dawn shouted.

Prudence looked at her. Her violet eyes glowed until they were nearly blinding. “Are you ready, now?”

“Ready to give us what’s ours?” Verity hissed.

“To win the war forever?” Prudence said.

“Or maybe you need more convincing,” the third woman murmured in a surprisingly cool and feminine voice, only to punctuate it with a squeeze of Hank’s neck that made him gawp for air as his face turned purple.

Prudence, eyes still aglow, traced a circle in the air at her side. It grew to the size of a portal, though she didn’t step through. Instead, she said, “Well, sister? Will you come?”

Dawn looked at Hank. In his tearing gaze she saw his fear, and his love, and both of those broke her heart. “Let him go!” she cried.

But Prudence shook her head, slowly. “I don’t think so.”

Verity snickered. “I’ve always wanted to take apart a Chaos Lordling.”

The third woman said nothing, just carried Hank in front of her like a prize as she stepped through the portal. Verity followed, grinning as she played with her scourge. Prudence took a step into the portal, too, but paused before going completely through.

“We’re waiting for you, sister,” she said. “Don’t disappoint us.” Then she ducked into the portal. It started to shrink, quickly.

“Dawn!” Holly’s voice was a reedy whistle.

Dawn flashed a look to her sister, crouched by the sofa. She looked so scared, so desperate. But desperation had always made the Granger sisters sharp. As sharp as daggers, and just as deadly.

She raced to the kitchen island and Dick’s gadgets, snatching one up in her hand. She passed Rachel just rising from the floor, holding her head. For a second, Dawn locked eyes with her. Rachel didn’t speak, but Dawn saw in her gaze a shine of curious alarm.

“Find us,” Dawn told her. She threw one more look to Holly. “I love you, baby.” Then she jumped through the portal, headlong into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy stuff, I know, but hopefully good stuff, too. As much as I cried and tore at my own heartstrings for this one, I'm also pretty pleased with how it came out. It's not over, yet! I hope you'll come back next time to find out what happens. Until then, happy reading!


	12. To Hell (still 18)

Dawn shut her eyes and tucked her body for a roll, hoping that her old Dove flexibility would assert itself and any landing at the end of her headstrong leap through Prudence’s portal wouldn’t hurt her or the baby. But the moment when she should have hit the ground didn’t come. Her shoulder didn’t slam into dirt; her hip didn’t crash against concrete. She wasn’t falling, either.

She opened her eyes.

The ground was several inches from her nose, and her hair was drifting between her face and the craggy terrain with the same kind of slow waft as if she were underwater. Except she wasn’t underwater. A glance toward her feet showed that the rest of her body was the same, with her belly closest to the ground but still hovering a few inches from the surface. All around her glowed a light blue light.

“That’s new,” Dawn muttered to herself.

She gave a tentative push against the ground with her hand. It brushed the surface; she felt the tiny stones press against her skin. Her whole body moved in response, rising a few inches and easing forward the same. After a long run of seconds, she started to drift down again. She never quite touched the ground, though.

“OK, baby. We can’t fly, but I don’t think I could figure out how to control that right now anyway. So! Next step: find your daddy,” she said, looking down at her belly; talking through this aloud, even to the baby, kept her brain from spiraling into panic.

She made some slow moves like rising out of a push-up and got her feet under her. Her naked soles scraped the rocks, but she could more or less stand upright in her float. Using this more comfortable posture, she cast a long look around.

She’d gone through the portal less than a minute behind Prudence, but there was no one else around. The veil of the portal had disappeared, either out of existence entirely or simply somewhere beyond Dawn’s vision. It didn’t matter either way. She was here, now.

Wherever “here” was, it had all the classic trappings of a hellscape. Barren, rocky terrain surrounded her, with a rise of black-red mountains in the far-off distance. Out of the top of one of those mountains spewed a great pearlescent light that pierced a dark sky roiling with violet clouds. Squinting, she could just make out what looked like a spire or tower at the crest of that vomiting peak.

“How much you want to bet that’s where the Sisters have taken him?”

Despite the impatience bubbling in her chest, she drew a breath to review the facts. She had no weapons, only Dick’s little transponder gadget, which shared the shape of a car key and was just about as useful in this situation. She had no armor, not even a pair of shoes. She had no way to communicate with anyone back home, and no place to retreat to if things went bad. She could hope the others were on their way, but she couldn’t assume.

“Which means it’s just you and me, baby.” She rubbed the side of her belly, as though to comfort the little life within. “But don’t worry. Mummy’s had lots of practice when it comes to saving Daddy’s ass. Now,” she said, frowning at the faraway mountain. “Let’s go get him.”

While she couldn’t fly, her low float allowed her to glide over the ground without making contact, save for the occasional bounce of a foot to keep her forward momentum going. This mode of travel speeded her progress and protected her from fatigue, so she made it to the base of the tower mountain in significantly less time than it would have taken her to walk or even run. Of course, she didn’t know how time worked here, and there wasn’t any way to keep track; no sun cast shadows from overhead, nor were there stars that moved across the sky. But she wasn’t tired, hungry, or even out of breath. Just anxious to find Hank. And ready to hurt the Sisters when she did.

The tower appeared to be carved from the stone itself. A series of ornate staircases on one side and scorched, hollowed-out paths on the other wound around the entire circumference of the mountain. The burned path would be smoother to traverse, but the staircase offered more crevices where she could potentially duck for cover, so she muscled up the determination to climb the steps.

Her hover tripped over the first dozen stairs, until she figured out the right amount of bounce to give to her float to carry her over the baroque treads. Even so, the trek was slow going. The stairs seemed infinite as they climbed toward the tower’s peak, and sumptuous carvings adorned the walls at regular intervals, many of them decorated with elaborate glyphs in flowing arrangement, like a visualization of a symphony. Dawn tried not to get distracted by them, but she had to admit they were magnificent. Then she rounded a wind of the stairs and saw the screeching slash across one such carving, and her pulse stuttered.

These designs weren’t simple decorations. They were history. Names. One name in particular had suffered a violent and ugly almost-erasure.

Not knowing quite why, Dawn reached out to the scarred stone glyph. As her fingertips brushed the stone, she felt a flash of cold, and her mind was assaulted by images that were half dream, half vision. Of a calm and beautiful blue spirit whom she knew in her soul to be Terataya floating up these same steps to the tower peak above, where a great blazing man-beast bellowed curses at an amphitheater court of assembled divinities. Of Terataya and that fiery provocateur – T’Charr, Dawn guessed – sharing interactions almost intimate. Of a trial that smacked of excommunication, and Terataya and T’Charr leaving the tower hand-in-hand, together and alone. And of Terataya’s and T’Charr’s names both being scored from these walls.

No more visions after that one, but Dawn knew the rest. How Terataya had chosen her, just like T’Charr had chosen Hank, to be an emissary of their heretical proposal for unity between Order and Chaos. How even beyond their own destruction, their plan to create a living embodiment of that unity had come to fruition between herself and Hank. And why the Fallen Sisters now so badly wanted the baby they’d made together.

Dawn drew her hand away from the wall and curled it into a fist. She pushed off from the step with a refreshed hardness in her heart and resumed her flight to the top of the tower.

What she registered as minutes in the monotony of climbing the stairs could have been hours, or the hours might have been minutes. As she approached the narrowed apex, though, the dulled thud of a punch into dense flesh broke the tedium of her ascent. It was followed by one of Hank’s tortured beatdown coughs.

Dawn pressed herself to the wall and held her breath.

“That’s the same one you did last time,” she heard Hank croak. “My twenty-three other ribs are going to get jealous.”

Dawn clenched her eyes and clamped her mouth shut at the sound of another slamming punch.

“Oh, God damn it,” Hank groaned.

“Your god cannot help you,” the third Sister said in a level voice. “Any more than your dead Chaos Lord can.”

Dawn peeked around the top of the staircase. The room beyond was more than a room; it was the amphitheater she’d seen in her strange vision of Terataya. Her path of stairs opened onto one of the highest rows, with several more extending downward in ever smaller circles. The tower’s ceiling was an incomplete dome above her, with the sides curving sharply upward toward a central hole. Twelve columns supported the rise of the ceiling, with one column shattered halfway from its base. To this broken base the Sisters had suspended Hank like a dangling effigy. The giant third Sister was standing in front of him, emotionless as he threw a wet spit at her feet.

“At least T’Charr left me a little piece to remember him by,” Hank goaded. “Your Lord of Order didn’t leave you jack shit.”

The Sister smashed her fist into his side, and Hank threw back his head, the tendons in his neck straining in pain.

“I’m going to enjoy watching you burn,” the Sister said.

Hank snapped his head down again. “Fuck you!”

“Constance!”

The third Sister threw a look over her gargantuan shoulder. “What?”

“Leave that infidel for now.” The command came from Prudence somewhere deeper in the tower room that Dawn couldn’t see. “And help us.”

“Better do as Miss Fancy Panties says,” Hank said with a sneer, and as much as Dawn wanted him safe, she also wished he would just _shut up_ before Constance slammed her knuckles through his chest.

Thankfully, Constance only glowered before turning and trudging away. After a dozen of Constance’s footfalls and half as many of her own heartbeats, Dawn chanced a deeper peer into the amphitheater. All the way at the bottom, on a dais in the middle of the floor, Verity and Prudence were lugging huge chunks of rock that resembled the broken pillar. Its pieces, maybe, conscripted for a new purpose. They were fashioned into a kind of altar, the perverted ritualism of the sight making Dawn’s stomach roll. She covered her mouth and shifted her attention to Constance, who was about halfway down the rows to the bottom. It would take at least a minute or two for her to jog all the way back up.

Dawn dropped her hands. She wasn’t going to get a better chance than this.

She wiggled up the wall, pressed the soles of her feet to its foundation, and shoved off with everything she had, launching herself toward Hank’s pillar. A chance tilt of his head sent his gaze her way, and his eyes popped wide and his mouth dropped open. When she was at arms’ length of him, Dawn grabbed his shirt and pulled herself to him for a kiss full of fierce devotion. Not the smartest use of their time, but she couldn’t help it. She parted them sooner than she wanted, keeping the relinquishing click of their lips quiet.

“Dawn?” he said in a rasping whisper, sounding amazed and confused and frightened all in the same syllable. “What are you—?”

“Hell and back,” she whispered in return, stroking his cheek. His skin felt hot, almost feverish, and he was drenched with sweat. But he was hers, and they were together. “Remember?”

He moved his head back and forth. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Too late now.” She pulled herself up his arms, to the bonds holding him to the column. From her hoodie pocket she pulled Dick’s transponder and started scraping its metal point over the lashes. They were tough, made of some kind of braided twine, and they’d chafed angry red bands into Hank’s wrists. But the individual fibers were thin, and she was scoring through them with increasing success.

“Are you glowing?” Hank asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“And you can _fly_?”

“Sort of. Listen,” she hissed, sawing frantically down to the last few threads because Constance or Verity could grab her by the neck and slaughter them both at any second. “As soon as I get through this rope, we’re going to have to move. Can you do that?”

“I’m not going to win any medals, but I can walk.”

Dawn nodded to herself, then stabbed the transponder through the final threads. They snapped, and Hank dropped to the ground with a strangled groan. She spared a glance over her shoulder. No one was after them – yet – so she helped him to his feet and drifted under one of his arms to help him stagger away.

She led him down the burnt-out path rather than the ornate staircase because she wasn’t sure how easy it would be for him to take the stairs quickly. And they had to be quick. While she couldn’t tell him to hurry, she did coach him on with a steady string of encouragements.

“You’re doing great, babe. We’re almost there. Just keep breathing; just like that.”

Except he wasn’t doing great. He was slowing down, each progressive step an arduous, limping lope. When they got to the bottom of the path, he crumpled to his hands and knees.

She threw a wild glance toward the path. “Hank, come on. We don’t have time.”

“Go,” he said, pushing at her hand. “Get out of here!”

“I’m not leaving you!”

“Dawn!” he roared, and raised his head, his grimacing teeth bright white against the burning color of his flesh.

She dropped to her haunches, still only hovering but low enough to clutch his face. “Oh, my God! What’s happening?”

Pale imprints surrounded her fingers where she touched his red-hot skin, and his sweat poured down him. The veins throbbed in his temples and down his neck. “This place,” he said, halfway between a growl and a mewl. “It’s doing something to me.”

“You don’t belong.”

Dawn whirled toward the sound of Prudence’s steady voice, spreading her arms to keep the Fallen Sister away from Hank. It was all three Sisters, though, spread out in an uneven line before her: Constance as imposing as a snorting bull on one side, Verity dangling her scourge on the other, and Prudence holding court in the middle.

“This place,” Prudence echoed with a sneer of condescension, “is a place of pure magic. It senses your corruption.”

“Why are you doing this?” Dawn demanded. Against her back, she felt the weight of Hank’s mass lean. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You broke the law!” Prudence thrust an accusatory finger their way. “You willfully consorted with the enemy of our people. Now, you stand heavy with their child, an abomination infected with the madness of Chaos. But we will save her. We will burn her from you, and burn the Chaos from her soul to make her pure once more. Then with our new lord, we will win the war, and this Age of Magic will be ours, forever, as it was meant to be.”

“You’re insane!” Dawn shouted at her.

Prudence’s face went pink with rage. “We are Order! Pledged to the continuation of its glory.” The jabbed finger became a hand of demand stretched to its limits. “And we will have our lord!”

“No!” Dawn said, spinning round to take hold of Hank with both arms the same way he did her, their baby in her belly between them.

She expected to feel Verity’s whip or Constance’s fist around her neck, or maybe even Prudence’s clawed fingers in her hair. But a chill formed around her suddenly, and she raised her head to find a cloud of dark tendrils moving around them. Rachel formed over Hank’s shoulder, small and slender in her cloak.

“Leave them alone,” Rachel said, her voice steady and clear. Dawn nearly broke into tears of relief and elation. Then Prudence spoke again.

“Pathetic little cambion girl,” she said with lilting disdain. “We are the Sisters of Order. Do you truly think you have any chance against us, here, where our power is supreme?”

“Not alone, no,” Rachel admitted. “But I did not come alone.”

She spread her arms, and her cloak billowed open to an impossible width. For a moment, there was only a thick and impenetrable obscurity within. Then a beam of blazing star-fire shot out from the darkness, and Dawn heard Constance let out a grunt. At the same moment, two arrows whistled over Dawn’s head and hit their marks with light _pok! pok!_ sounds. Bright, beautiful Donna came charging out from the abyss under Rachel’s cloak, followed by a green-hued gorilla that had to be Gar.

Dawn flung a look behind her. Donna had Verity’s scourge wrapped around her arms. The two competed for leverage while Gar took a more direct approach, trading thundering roars and blows with Constance. Prudence was on the ground, holding her face; Dawn saw a rough red mark on her cheek from where Roy’s blunt-tipped arrow must have hit.

“We’ve got to get the two of you out of here,” Dick said, suddenly at her side. “I don’t know how long Rachel can last.”

“Do not worry about me,” Rachel said, though there was a wavering strain in her voice.

Dawn ignored it. Less than thirty feet away, Prudence struggled to her feet and scuttled toward the path up the tower mountain.

“We need to finish this,” Dawn decided. “Now, or the Sisters will keep coming.”

“Dawn…!” Dick warned, when Hank screamed and dug his hands into the ground.

Roy joined them, another arrow at the ready. “What’s wrong with Hank?”

“It’s the magic,” Dawn told them.

“It burns!” Hank yelled.

Dick moved to grab him when Kory shouted:

“Hank! The magic is fighting you because you’re trying to control it. Don’t! Set it free.”

Donna yanked Verity toward her for a powerful kick to the gut. Verity went flying backward but quickly rebounded to her feet. At the same time, Gar tumbled with Constance in a violent tangle of thrashing limbs. Prudence was already gone up the path.

“Little help here!” Donna called out, as she and Verity clashed again.

Dick clamped his lips together a second, then got to his feet. “Roy, stay with Rachel. Kory, you’re with me. Hank?” He shot them a grim look. “Give them hell.” Then he was off with a snap of his Nightwing batons.

Dawn took hold of Hank’s face. “You can do this, baby.”

A searing vehemence in his gaze ached to be let loose, but he sputtered, “I can’t!”

“Yes, you can. I know you’re scared about letting go, but we have to stop Prudence. To do that, I need you. Our baby needs you.” She lowered her head. “We’re going to tear that stuck-up Sister to shreds, and we’re going to do it together.”

Clarity bloomed in Hank’s eyes, a contentment coming with it. It seemed to flow over, around, and through him all at once, lifting him to his full height. While no visual or physical manifestation made itself known in his stance or form, it felt to Dawn that he was on fire.

She floated up, holding his hand. “Ready?” she asked.

His smile was full of eager fury. “Let’s take that bitch apart.”

He ran and she flew, past their friends battling the other Sisters and back up the mountain tower path they’d just descended, to head off, defeat, or simply beat down Prudence, whatever would keep their baby safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, OK then!
> 
> I know there's quite a bit of slowness at the head of this chapter, but I felt it was important to illustrate. If you disagree, let me know. I'm always interested to learn how I can tighten up a story. As for the magical stuff, what can I say? This story was always going to be about Dawn and Hank's magic baby, though I admit to being a little bit surprised myself as to just how magical it's become. Still, I really enjoyed writing the Titans' entrance. If it hadn't happened here, it wouldn't have happened anywhere, and I couldn't let it fizzle off into the ether.
> 
> For anyone itching to get past the nutty adventure stuff and back to the more real-world drama and fun, don't worry: we're almost there. We just need to deal with Prudence....
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's reading, and extra special thanks to folks who take the time to leave me your thoughts! I wish I could buy you all a beer. :)


	13. An Ending (18 almost gone)

Hank charged up the path, his trainers crunching the burnt-out ground like wheels over gravel. Dawn held to his shoulder, stretching her legs straight out behind her to keep her resistance mass low. He’d been running maybe a minute, but they were already halfway to the tower peak.

“How do we know she’s even up here?” Hank’s voice had no strain or pant; he may as well have been strolling. “Maybe she’s already ’ported out.”

Dawn shook her head even if he couldn’t see it. “Prudence is a fanatic. She doesn’t want to escape. She wants to win.”

“Then she’s got to know we’re coming.”

“Oh, I’m sure she does.” She drifted closer to his ear with a little smile. “But what she might not know is that you’re powered up, too, now.”

The whites of his canines flashed in a grin. “She’s about to find out. You got a plan to take her down?”

“Not yet,” Dawn said bleakly.

Hank only chuckled as he ran. “Improvise it is.”

They reached the top of the path in a marathoner’s time, drawing to a stop at the curving archway where it blurred into the uppermost row of the amphitheater. Hank laid a hand on the wall, peering around the edge. Dawn went with him, holding close to his shoulder in a hover as she looked down into the well of the structure.

Far below on the center dais, Prudence scrambled around the Sisters’ cobbled altar, muttering phrases in some unintelligible language while she scratched markings into the altar’s mensa with a rock shard. Once again, Dawn felt a wave of nausea roll over her, and she had to cover her mouth to keep what little was in her guts from spewing up.

“Well,” Hank muttered, “that doesn’t look good.”

Dawn swallowed down her bile and steadied herself against the wall. “What do we do?”

“Here’s an idea: Fuck her up,” he said, and before she could offer any caution or dissent, Hank was off and running, hopping rows like they were racing hurdles and he was going for the gold. Dawn didn’t waste time rolling her eyes or slapping her forehead, just pushed off from the wall with a little low-blown curse.

His speed gave him a strong lead, so Dawn could only watch as, two rows shy of reaching the dais, he launched into the air, clearing the final distance as a long jump. He slammed his landing on the mensa with feet and fists, and the altar slab splintered from the impact. As Prudence was blown backward to the floor of the dais, Hank leaned down to crow, “How do you like me now?”

Prudence thrust out her arm to carve a portal glyph. Hank snatched her up by the wrist and she flailed like a rag doll, her incantation scattering to air. Dawn saw a flash of grey in Prudence’s other hand, then heard a dull _chuk_ as the Sister stabbed her rock shard into Hank’s left shoulder. He let go of her and recoiled with a shout. Then he snarled, yanked it free, and smashed his fist into her face.

Prudence’s head rebounded, her nose spurting blood and her lip split open. Her eyes blazed white, and she shoved her palm at Hank’s chest. A burst of light blew out Dawn’s senses. Half a heartbeat later, Hank went flying as if on the head of a missile before crashing through two amphitheater rows. It took him a moment to get up again, but he did, huge and seething with Chaotic fury. His voice came out a boom:

“I’m going to break you in half!”

Dawn did a scissor dive in mid-air, dropping between him and Prudence. “Hank, no! We’re not here to murder anybody.” She pirouetted toward the dais and called out to the last Sister. “It’s over, Prudence. The other Sisters are in custody or soon will be. Surrender quietly, and I’ll make sure all of you get fair judgment.”

“Fair judgment?” Prudence echoed through a puffed and bloodied sneer. “From whom? Some pitiful _human_ court? This is about eternity!” she said, suddenly shouting. “And the rightful place of Order as its master!”

“The Lords of Order are dead!” Dawn shouted back at her. “The Lords of Chaos, too.” She drew a breath to calm herself and temper her next words. “We have the chance to start something new, now. Something better. The Unity that Terataya and T’Charr believed in—”

“Traitors!” Prudence howled. “I will fight that heresy to my dying breath.”

“Fine by me,” Hank said.

Dawn threw out a hand behind her. “Prudence, _please_ ,” she said, in one final attempt at peaceful resolution before she gave Hank free rein. “The war is over, and the Lords are gone. Nothing will change that. You don’t have to be part of the new future; that’s your choice. But you can’t fight its coming.” She held her belly. “It’s already here.”

Prudence’s face twisted into an angry grimace. “Then I will see it terminated,” she said, and swiped her fingers through the air.

Dawn braced herself for an attack when Hank made a gasping noise behind her. She whirled, finding him gone. A portal hole yawned in the amphitheater floor where he’d been.

“ _Hank!_ ” she cried, throwing herself toward the portal opening.

It was only a second that she saw him, and in that second the whole universe seemed to freeze. Hank was falling, his face white with horror and fear and his limbs swimming for purchase through empty air. He stretched for her, his mouth dropping open to shout her name. Far below him, Dawn saw Donna’s gold lasso and Gar’s giant green form. Then Hank’s thunderous bellow was cut short by the portal circle snapping shut, leaving Dawn to pound her palms against the cold, pitiless stone. She cried Hank’s name again, too, as tears burst in her vision, hoping that Dick or Donna or _somebody_ would pull out some Titans miracle to save him before he crashed to the ground.

Prudence grabbed the hair at the base of Dawn’s skull and yanked her up from the floor.

“Faithless whore,” the Sister grumbled as she walked toward the dais, pulling Dawn behind her like a kite bereft of wind. “You’ll shed tears for that noxious Chaos lordling brute, but none for your brothers and sisters lost to his kind in the last great war.”

Dawn squeezed her eyes in a hard blink, forcing out the last of those tears. She drew a stuttering breath through her nose and pushed it out slowly through her lips, then gritted her teeth behind them. In her belly, an ember of wrath began to smolder. It turned her loose hands to tight fists and her tensed muscles to ready sinew. Meanwhile, Prudence kept talking.

“It could have been different,” she mused as they left the rows behind. “But, now, you and your corrupted spawn must be obliterated.”

Still holding her hair, Prudence swung Dawn in front of her. Dawn turned with the swing, bringing them face to face.

“No,” was all Dawn said, calmly and unafraid but crackling with fury. She shot out her fist in a jab to Prudence’s eye, following it with a flowing kick to Prudence’s ribs. The Sister staggered backward and let go to clutch herself. When she tried to stand straight, Dawn spun with a kick to her face.

A spray of blood from Prudence’s lips splattered the splintered altar. She raised her head, her mouth doubly battered and her left eye red from burst vessels. Her cheek was already swelling.

“You’re done, Prudence,” Dawn told her, her voice and her limbs shaking as she hovered above the other woman. “Give up. Your sisters can’t help you, and there is _no_ magic in this world or any other that will save you from me if you even so much as threaten my family again.”

The Sister stared with her one good eye, silent and breathing hard through her broken lips. Then her features contorted and contracted, and she let out a yell and launched herself at Dawn, her hands out for Dawn’s throat.

Without any leverage, Dawn cycled backward in the air. She grabbed Prudence’s arms, but the Sister’s grip was murderous. She clawed at Prudence’s cheek, but Prudence didn’t feel the scratches or just ignored them on top of her swollen flesh.

“I am Order’s envoy,” Prudence hissed into her face. “The new lord should be my triumph, not yours! I will not see the traitors’ plan come to pass,” she promised, as her good violet eye started to glow. “Even if I have to burn with you both myself.”

Dawn pushed hard against Prudence’s chin, but that eye blazed brighter. Its light intensified, filling her vision with specks and stars. Dawn shut her eyes and tried to swim away, when her hand brushed something hard at her side. Dick’s transponder gadget was still in her pocket. She grabbed it, yanked it out, and slammed it into that screaming white light.

Prudence shrieked, wheeling away with her hands at her face. She stumbled into the altar and fumbled to her knees, still screaming.

Dawn floated backward, her heart pounding. A hand fell on her shoulder and she twisted around with a yelp.

“It’s OK!” Hank said, flushed and wide-eyed but alive and in one piece and so solid and firm as he pulled her into his arms.

Dawn started to cry.

“It’s OK,” Hank said again, brushing her hair as she squeezed herself to his warm, safe chest. “You’re OK.”

“Jesus,” Donna mumbled somewhere close by while Prudence continued to wail, though more defeated, now. Beneath the sound came Dick’s cool decisiveness.

“You and Kory take her back to the others. Make sure she’s secure.”

“What about them?” Dawn heard Kory ask.

“Give them a minute,” Dick said.

There was some rustling and foot treads amid Prudence’s whimpering, but Dawn just held to Hank, sobbing her own.

“I tried,” she said, sniffling into his shirt. “I tried not to hurt her.”

“I know you did,” Hank muttered.

“I didn’t have a choice!”

“I know.” Hank combed his fingers through her hair. “It’s over, now. Time to go home.”

A feeling of calm traveled with her pulse beating through her, and Dawn raised her head. Hank smiled. She started to smile, too, when that pulse became a dizzying wave, and heavy shadows crowded the edges of her vision.

“Dawn?”

She heard Hank’s voice as far away, along with a chorus of matching exclamations from Dick and Donna. But that was all before a deep and sudden blackness washed over her.

A moment later, a beep sounded in the dark, and Dawn opened her eyes. She expected to see Hank and Dick and Donna, maybe Prudence and Kory, too, all of them clustered in the amphitheater. But she was in a white-walled room, lying in a white-sheeted bed, feeling heavy and dazed. An IV was in her hand, making it itch.

“Hey,” Dick said softly near her side.

Dawn turned her head to find him sitting cross-legged in a big vinyl chair next to the IV rack. His chin was propped in his hand and he smiled.

“Welcome back,” he said.

“Am I in hospital?” she asked.

Dick shook his head. “S.T.A.R. Labs, in San Francisco. Rachel teleported us to save time.” He uncrossed his legs to lean out over his knees. “You fainted.”

Dawn closed her eyes and groaned. How damsel-y.

Dick must have mistaken her self-contempt for pain. “Are you all right?” he asked, reaching for her arm.

She waved her hand. “Yeah. Just a little tired.”

“You were dehydrated, and your blood sugar levels had crashed.”

She snapped her eyes open. “The baby—?”

“Your little one’s fine.” Dick broke into a snickering smile. “Your big one, too. He was here,” he said with a refreshed breath, “but when the doctors said you just needed liquids and rest, Karen dragged him off to her lab.” He shrugged. “You know how scientists are with their tests.”

Dawn nodded even though she didn’t know, not really. She hadn’t spent much time among the science types after becoming Dove. Not having powers tended to put her far down the list of sought-after persons of interest, though the weight of her body in the bed and the lack of any magical frisson or glow told her that she was back to being just Dawn.

She smiled to herself, a bit sadly, then sighed. “And the Sisters?”

Dick became more serious, too. “Zatanna’s still on assignment, but she sent a proxy to take care of them.” He shook his head. “They won’t be bothering you or anybody else ever again.”

Dawn gave another nod and breathed a tiny sigh of relief. “When do you think I can go home?”

His smile returned. “As soon as you’re feeling up to it.”

A spring of tears came to her eyes unbidden. “Thanks,” she said, her voice trembling a bit at the edges. “I don’t want to think about what would have happened if it weren’t for you, and Rachel and Donna and—!” She choked on the rest.

Dick just kept smiling. “What are friends for, if not to follow you into a magical dimension and fight off a couple of extremist witches?”

She sputtered a laugh. It felt clean, light. Good. She was still chuckling when Hank walked in, dressed in a black and grey S.T.A.R. Labs jumpsuit that fit him too tightly to be in his right size. He looked flushed but fresh, as though he’d just come from a shower.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said, striding around Dick to lean down for a peck of Dawn’s cheek. “How you feeling?”

“Better,” she said. “You?”

Hank rubbed the back of his neck. “Still feeling a little whiplash from Roy’s net arrow and Donna’s tackle, but otherwise, I’m good.” He grinned. “Karen even wants to write a paper about me.”

“Great,” Dick mumbled. “Another thing to swell your head.”

“You’re welcome to get a sliver of primordial magic inside you, too, if you want in on this party,” Hank said with a lopsided smile. 

Dick waved him off. “No, thank you.”

Hank returned to Dawn and furrowed his brow. “Ready to go home?”

She smiled, nodded, and laughed all in the same heartbeat. “Absolutely!”

“Rachel’s still recovering,” Dick announced before breaking into one of his more mischievous smirks. “But if you don’t mind the trip taking a little extra time, you’re welcome on the fucking jet.”

“Fuck yeah!” Hank said with another grin. He looked at Dawn like a kid asking for ice cream. “Can we?”

She chuckled. “Whatever gets us home.”

They cleared out of S.T.A.R. and climbed into the jet, an impressively sleek light business aircraft modified for urban operations and tight landings; Dawn glimpsed what looked like a buffed-out Wayne Enterprises logo stenciled on the side. Kory was already in the pilot’s seat. Dick, Gar, and Rachel were staying behind for a later pickup, so it was only Donna and Roy sharing the passenger seats with them. Hank asked Dawn if she wanted to spread out and lie down for the trip, but she declined, instead snuggling up to his arm for support for a nice two-hour nap.

When they finally got home, it was dark, but the lights in the house were on. A lone silhouette stood on the porch, and as Hank waved farewell to their ride, Dawn held her breath. Holly came down the steps toward her, her gait measured and tentative. Then her foot left the bottom step and she started to run, throwing her arms around Dawn with a choked, sobbing cry that made Dawn break into fresh tears, too.

“I’m sorry I called your baby stupid!” Holly bawled. “I didn’t mean those horrid things I said.”

“I know,” Dawn said, sniffling and chuckling together.

“I love you so much. And I’m glad you’re my sister.”

Dawn hugged her tightly. “I’m glad, too.” She stroked her sister’s hair. “And I love you. So, so much.”

Holly released a long, drawn-out sigh. “I was so scared,” she said in a steadier voice.

Dawn bobbed her head. “Me, too.” She pushed herself back and looked Holly in the face. “But we don’t need to be scared of those women anymore. It’s over.”

Holly sniffed and nodded. Her nose was red and her eyes were a bit puffy, but she cocked her familiar brassy grin. “What’s the next big adventure for my superhero sis?”

Dawn put her arm through Holly’s. “Did you forget I’m getting married in three days?” she said as she started them toward the house.

“I didn’t forget.” Holly bumped her with her hip and said in a teasing mumble, “Was kind of hoping you did, though.”

“I heard that,” Hank muttered from behind them.

Dawn chuckled and put out her free hand. Hank’s fingers slipped around it, and as she squeezed them back, she drew him to her side. They said nothing else as they walked up the steps and into the house. They didn’t have to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the Fallen Sisters - and the big adventure - part of the story. What did you think? Was it worth it? Did it go over the top? Should things have turned out differently? Let me know!
> 
> As always, thanks to everyone who's reading, and thank you in advance if you decide to drop me a comment. I love comments. :)


	14. Brand New Days (19)

“I don’t remember you having this much _hair_! Was your head smaller back then?”

Holly’s mumbled, offhanded complaint made Dawn giggle. When they’d been girls, they’d done each other’s hair into plaits and buns for ballet performances and gymnastics tournaments. Over the last two days, through the long walking chats and the shared stories on the porch swing, they’d managed to recapture some of that closeness of their youth and help it grow. It didn’t mean there wasn’t still teasing, though.

“Head sizes don’t change much during life,” Dawn told her.

Holly’s hands paused in their winding and weaving of Dawn’s wispy updo. “You mean you’re going to push one of these through your snatch?!”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “A _baby’s_ head is smaller. But my head hasn’t changed much since I was a girl.” She shot a look to the corner of her vision, though couldn’t make out her sister; she wished suddenly she was sitting at a mirror. “Yours, either.”

“Prettier,” Holly muttered.

“Right.”

A staccato knocking attacked the door, and Kory’s melodic voice came from the outside: “Flower girl delivery!”

Dawn giggled again. “Come on in, Kory.”

Dawn turned at the swish of the door, which allowed entry for Lian in a charming two-tone green dress that bounced around her knees and Kory in a stunning maroon pantsuit with gold accents.

“Hey!” Dawn said with a grin before Holly wrenched her head back into place.

Kory knew enough to come around into Dawn’s field of vision. She beamed her effusive smile in a way that rippled waves of support in Dawn’s direction. “You look beautiful,” she crooned.

“Thanks! So do you. And I _love_ that dress, Lian!”

“Thank you.” Lian pointed her toes; Dawn noticed she was wearing just her tights and holding a pair of shiny black Mary Janes in her hand. “I chose it myself.”

“What about your shoes?” Dawn asked.

Lian made a face. “They hurt my feet.”

“Mine, too,” Dawn commiserated. She’d bought her bridal shoes weeks ago, before she’d started to feel the onset of typical pregnancy swelling, and now just the thought of putting them on made her grimace.

“Don’t wear them,” Kory said with an easy, dismissive flap of her hand. “We’ll make sure the roller’s clear.”

Lian cheered, but Dawn frowned. “You think that will be OK?”

“You’re the bride,” Holly reasoned. “The single most important person of the day. Nobody’s going to tell you you can’t do what you want.”

“Just wear your liners,” Kory agreed. “No one will notice.”

“Besides,” Holly said with a snicker, “all eyes are going to be on the flower girl, anyway.”

“That’s not true!” Lian said, while Holly laughed.

Kory chuckled, too, then bent close to Dawn. “Feeling OK? Can I get you anything?”

“No, thanks,” Dawn said with a gentle shake of her head as Holly returned to stuffing pins in her hair. “Just a little antsy.”

Kory nodded, abruptly serious. “It’s natural to be anxious. Marriage for love is a big commitment,” she said, intimating some greater knowledge on the subject. Dawn didn’t have time to ask about it before Kory laid her slender fingers on Dawn’s shoulder and smiled. “But you two were made for each other. Anybody can see that.”

A buzz from Kory’s person distracted her, and she pulled her phone from a deep pocket in her blousy trousers. “Donna’s asking for a status report.” She smiled. “Apparently, Hank’s ready to sweat through his suit.”

Dawn let out a caring coo and laughed. “Oh, no!”

Kory turned to Lian. “Your dad wants to know if you need him to walk with you?”

Lian tossed her head back and groaned. “Ugh! No. I told him: I can do this myself.”

When Holly finished her hair with a gentle pat, Dawn moved to stand up. “I’m about ready, too.”

“My flowers!” Lian prompted.

Holly gestured for her hand. “They’re over here,” she said, leading Lian over to her basket.

Dawn chuckled after them, then shrugged off the loose silk dressing gown and set it over the back of the chair. She smoothed the skirt of her dress over her belly, gave a little tug on the braided band beneath her bust, pushed her shoulders back, and raised her head. “How do I look?”

“Gorgeous,” Kory assured her with a serene and supportive smile.

Dawn smiled back, her heart pattering. Then Holly came to her side, and Lian stepped in front of them with her basket of cherry-red ranunculus, white rose, and pale blue hydrangea petals. Kory held the door open for them, and they moved into the corridor, then through the gathering room where the reception would be, and finally to the edge of the doorway to the secluded garden where waited the officiant, guests, and her husband-to-be.

Kory went off to signal the music to start. In the brief silence, Holly leaned close to Dawn with a leading smirk.

“Still time to make a run for it,” she teased.

Dawn narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together for a scolding look. Then the first bars of the entrance music went off, and Lian walked proudly through the door, scattering her petals dutifully in front of her.

“See you at the front,” Holly whispered, and followed Lian around the doorway.

As soon as her sister was gone, Dawn pulled a deep breath, closed her eyes, listened, and waited. The music cue changed. She opened her eyes, raised her head, and took the first measured step onto the runner.

Smiling and tear-streaked faces filled the rows on either side of her petal-strewn path. But it was the sight of Hank walking up the aisle to meet her that caused Dawn’s pulse to flutter. She broke into a beam to answer his grin, taking first his offer of the bouquet of red ranunculus and white roses, then the offer of his arm. They walked the rest of the way together, slowly but with purpose, matching each other step for step.

They’d decided on a simple Unitarian ceremony, for sake of Hank’s general agnosticism and Dawn’s Anglican upbringing. Dick read for them in his confident, knowing voice, a soulful passage about togetherness from Ecclesiastes. The officiant spoke about the bonds of faith and hope. Then she invited Dawn and Hank to hold hands, and they declared vows, exchanged rings, and sealed their promises to each other with a kiss that triggered an explosion of applause that sounded like a flock of birds taking flight.

They recessed up the runner hand-in-hand, this minute still only for the two of them. Then they took their place for the receiving line, flanked by Donna and Holly.

“Need anything?” Holly asked.

Dawn shifted from one foot to the other. “Can you get my shoes?”

As Holly jogged away with enviable speed in her heels, Hank craned his head toward the hem of Dawn’s dress. “You’re not wearing your shoes?”

“They hurt my feet,” Dawn told him.

“Can I do that, too?” he asked, lifting his foot. “Because these things suck.”

Donna slapped him on the back. “Buck up, big guy.” She nodded toward the first guests approaching. “Here comes the line.”

A flurry of friends and acquaintances came through, from Bette Kane, who greeted everyone with equal squealing excitement, to Wally West, who, after offering his congratulations for both their wedding and baby, dashed off in a breeze. Donna and Holly did their duty of keeping things moving, including wrangling all the necessary folks for photos in the ceremony garden, then back into the dining hall for the reception.

While the venue’s wait staff moved about delivering glass flutes filled with requested non-alcoholic sparkling cider, Donna stood up for her toast.

“Hank,” she announced as the room settled into an expectant quiet, “is the quintessential big brother. Even I’ve come to think of him that way. He’s loud, brash, often overbearing, and when he teases, he is _merciless_.” She let the laughter and agreement continue an extra-long moment before moving on in a more generous tone. “But he is also a tireless supporter, an indomitable companion, and one of the staunchest defenders anyone could ever have in their corner. I know this because I’ve been on the receiving end of all of those traits at one time or another.” She tilted her head to look at Hank and smiled. “And, because I remember Don.”

Hank stiffened at that name. Dawn laid her hand on his thigh, and his fingers came around hers. He watched Donna, though, rapt by her words.

“You’d have been hard pressed to find two brothers who were so different, yet so inseparable. When Don died,” Donna said, her voice fraying at the edges, “Hank lost more than a brother. He lost a piece of himself. And, as his friends, we worried. We worried he’d be broken forever. But then,” she went on, turning more confident, “as so often happens in great love stories, he met someone. An intelligent, complex, caring woman with boundless optimism and infinite stores of patience. Little by little, bit by bit, with her help, he put himself back together. But he didn’t just return to being the insufferable big brother we’d known for so many years. He got better. Stronger. I daresay, he grew up.”

Donna reached for her glass and plucked it up by the stem. She kept it low for another minute, though, as she turned her full attention to both Hank and Dawn.

“Now,” Donna said, “in some other universe, some other reality, it could be Don standing here. But the words he’d say are the same as the ones I’ll say today. That I am so proud of the man you’ve become, and the husband and father that you’re going to be. You’ve come so far, and there’s a long way yet to go, but I know that you and Dawn can do it, together.” She raised her glass, tipped it to Hank, and smiled. “Congratulations, bro.” She crinkled her nose. “You done good.”

Applause and the clinking of glasses accompanied Hank’s rise and rocking embrace of Donna, who grinned and kissed him on the cheek. They exchanged words whispered too low for Dawn to hear, but the loving sentiment was clear from the looks on both their faces. Then Donna gestured to Holly, announcing the passing of the speech baton to her.

Holly got to her feet, looked down at her hands, and said, “It’s going to be hard to top that. But I’ll give it a shot. I’m used to a challenge, having followed Dawn in most things for most of my life.

“I was going to say,” Holly began afresh in her particularly dry and acerbic fashion, “what a pain in the arse it was, growing up with Dawn as a sister. Because she always got the highest marks, gave the best performances… She did everything right. And that always got under my skin. We weren’t inseparable like some siblings,” she said, tossing a look at Hank, who leaned over to put a comforting arm around Dawn’s shoulders. “For days, months, even years, we didn’t know where the other one was. I suppose that was as much my fault as hers.”

Her voice had fallen to a mutter, and she stared into space a moment. Then she pinched out a tiny smile and, still looking into that middle distance, she became reflective.

“But when she called me to ask if I’d be her Maid of Honor, I felt so welcomed, so loved. It was as if all that time we’d spent apart had never passed, and we were innocent little girls again, without anger or regret. And, as I was thinking about what I should say today, I had this memory of being very young. It was summer, and in London, the summers can get blisteringly hot. We heard the ice cream van come round, so our mum gave us some money, and we ran down the street, chasing after that van for some 99s.” She turned to Dawn for a soft chuckle. “Do you remember how _good_ those tasted?”

Dawn chuckled, and Holly raised her head and resumed.

“I got my ice cream, and I started to run back to the house,” she said in a rambling way, “because I was always running everywhere. And I tripped, and that cone _flew_ out of my hand and plopped onto the pavement.” She gave a little flail of her hands. “Flake and all. And I started to cry. And my sister…!” She snickered and shook her head, as if skeptical. “My sister helped me up, put her ice cream in my hand, and said, ‘Have mine.’ Like it was the most natural thing in the world to do.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Because, to Dawn, it was. Because that’s just the kind of person she is. She gives without taking; she loves without condition. She always puts other people first.”

Holly looked past Dawn with a stiff little smirk. “I hope Hank knows how lucky he is, to have her as a partner.”

While Hank hugged her with a bump of his arm, Dawn sniffled up a little smile at her sister. Then Holly looked straight at her and raised her glass.

“To my sister,” she said. “I wish for you and your little family all the love and all the happiness in the world.” She grinned cheekily. “And if there’s anyone or anything who gets in the way of that, you call me, and I’ll give ’em what for.”

Dawn nodded and laughed and started to stand, but Holly put her arms around her before Dawn could rise.

“I love you,” Holly whispered there with a tight squeeze, as the applause and calls rose around them.

“I love you, too,” Dawn said, holding strong for another moment before the clinking of spoons and forks to glasses prompted a start to the more conventional and sillier festivities.

For the rest of the day, they ate and danced – beginning with an old favorite for the first and rounding into a looser flow of movers and shakers – and got swept up in the whirl of laughter and stories and well wishes. Night came, and friends filtered away, leaving for hotel rooms and long rides home. In an act of surprising selflessness, Holly drove Hank and Dawn to the hotel, then offered to transport the gifts and keepsakes back to the house and return for them in the morning.

“I’ll make sure the homestead doesn’t get overrun with wildlife,” Holly said as she moved to take Hank’s place behind the wheel. She gave an irreverent _heh_. “And you two can go mad on each other without me having to hear it.”

“Will do,” Hank said easily.

Dawn took Holly in another quick hug. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Be naughty!” Holly called before she drove away with a brief squeal of tires.

As Dawn watched the car turn the corner, Hank blew a sniff. “For once, I agree with her,” he said, and put his arm around her as they walked into the hotel.

Their room was on a higher floor, with a view of the city skyline and a King-size bed to accommodate Hank’s full 6’4” stretch. They traded time under the luxuriously hot rainfall shower, Dawn leaving last to pull all the pins and scrub all the holding spray from out of her hair. By the time she was finished, her skin was pink and tingling, and she half-expected Hank to be asleep. But when she stepped out of the bathroom in her t-shirt pyjamas and panties, shaking her damp hair with her fingers, she found him propped upon the bed with his hands behind his head, wearing a grin and nothing else.

Dawn sputtered a laugh.

Hank took her reaction in stride. “Hello, Mrs. Haller,” he said, popping his brows.

She put a hand to her mouth to compose herself, then smiled back at him. “Hello, Mr. Haller.”

“You look beautiful.”

“You look cold.”

He snickered. “Give it a minute.”

She giggled and padded over to the bed, trying her best to keep her focus on his face. She sat down next to him and ran her fingers through the short hairs at his temple. “Haller,” she repeated. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”

His upper body bounced with a shrug. “What’s in a name?”

She hummed and brushed at his hair again. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet?”

“That’s Shakespeare,” he said knowingly.

This time, Dawn raised her brows. “I’m impressed!”

“Don’t be,” he said, making a face. “I only know the really famous ones.”

“That’s OK. I didn’t marry you for your brains.”

Hank dropped his jaw in mock offense, and Dawn fell against him in a laugh. Then she pressed her lips to his to show him she was genuinely teasing. When they parted, she tried again:

“You’re sure you don’t mind us not being Hall?”

“Not if it means I don’t have to worry about some crazy ex-supervillain trying to blow us up for the rest of our lives. Besides,” he said, shifting his weight to sit up. “This is about more than just a clean new paper trail.” He rubbed his hand over her thigh, more lovingly than sexual. “It’s about you and me, making a fresh start as partners, together.”

She pushed her lips into a moue, blowing out a coo as she took his face in her hands. “Have I told you how much I love it when you’re sentimental?” she asked, though she didn’t give him time to answer before pulling him into another kiss, this one deep and lingering.

He drew her into his arms, then into his lap. She put one leg over him in invitation, but when his hands came up from around her hips, it was to gently push her away.

“You know,” he whispered, separating their mouths with a click, “we never really talked about what happened with the Sisters.”

Dawn sat straight. “Dick said Zatanna was taking care of them,” she said, but Hank stopped her with a word.

“No. I mean…your magic. I didn’t tell Karen because I didn’t want her to start in on her tests with you, too. With the baby—”

“Hank.” She swung her head back and forth in a slow shake. “There’s no magic.”

“But-!”

“Whatever it was that manifested in me over there, it didn’t make it through to here. Believe me, I’ve tried. Not so much as an extra-long hop.”

His frown betrayed some more conflicted emotion. “Maybe you just need training. Like I did, with Rachel.”

“Babe,” she said with a lilting chuckle, “it’s fine. I never had any magic all those years I was Dove. Up until last week, I lived my whole life without it!” She shook her head again. “I didn’t have time to get used to the idea of magic for me to miss it. And why does it matter anyway? I thought we didn’t need anything but each other.”

“We don’t,” he said, though even his agreement lacked the sound of solid conviction.

She cupped his face and stroked the strong bones of his cheeks. “We’re not Hawk and Dove anymore,” she intoned softly. “In twenty-ish weeks, we’re going to have a baby! Isn’t that excitement and adventure enough for you?”

“Of course, it is,” he said, lowering his gaze in a boyishly darling acceptance of her scold. “But…!”

“But what?”

“You’re not like everybody else, Dawn. You’re… _amazing_. Literally. A real, goddamned superhero!” His eyes flicked up to hers again. “The world should recognize that.”

“I don’t care what the world thinks,” she told him. “I don’t need magic to make me feel special. And you shouldn’t, either!” She rubbed her thumb over the frowning crease of skin at the corner of his mouth. “You’re a good man. My husband and the father of our baby. That’s what I fought the Sisters for. That’s all that matters. I love you.” She brushed her lips to his in a barely-there kiss, then smiled. “Mr. Haller.”

He made a sudden smile, too. “I love you, Mrs. Haller.”

They kissed again, long and full of both desire and affection. She took off her clothes to match his nakedness, and they made love for each other as much as for sake of the day’s occasion. Amid the sensuality and joy, Dawn felt a thrill of something new: a flutter of elan in her belly that made her gasp around her coming and hold Hank deeply inside of her until he had nothing left to give.

A pleasant wooziness rushed through her, and she closed her eyes and wrapped herself around him, hugging his head to her chest. She kissed his crown and rubbed her cheek over his hair, taking in great lungfuls of air that smelled of soap, sweat, and their sex.

“Dawn?”

Hank’s voice was low, barely more than a murmur; Dawn just hummed in answer, still nuzzling his hair. He slipped his hand around hers and pulled it away from his head, and his next words came out a wheeze: “You’re glowing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a ton of stuff I left out of this one: Dawn and Hank's first dance (Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, of course), more of Kory's marriage knowledge, Donna getting chummy with Roy, interactions with other Titans acquaintances, even mention of Jason! But including all of that would have been extremely self-indulgent, and there's already an awful lot of that going on in this story, this chapter in particular. Still, I hope folks enjoy what's here.
> 
> The ranunculus and hydrangea are not-so-subtle nods to Hank's and Dawn's hero colors, respectively. Donna's role as best person should be a little more obvious, now, for anyone who didn't catch the similarity the first go-round, and Holly's story is a true one, though not from comics canon or my own life. It was too sweet a story to pass up the opportunity of using, though. 
> 
> "What now?" I hear you ask. Well, dear reader, you'll just have to come back next time to find out. :) Many thanks to everyone who's read so far, and - as always - extra thanks to those folks kind enough to drop me a line about what they think.


	15. A Magician Knocks (21)

A week of being married to Hank felt not much different to Dawn from a week of not. Just as he’d been before exchanging their vows, he was a present, loving, supportive, and helpful partner. He was also a stubborn and confrontational pain in the ass.

“Why don’t you want to talk about this?” he pressed, yet again, as he followed her to the other side of the kitchen island.

Dawn set down her fresh mug of tea and turned to him with a gentle sigh. “Babe,” she said, taking the moment to lay her palm to his cheek. “I _love_ how open and willing you’ve gotten when it comes to discussing your feelings and things that are bothering you—”

“Thank you.”

“—but there really is nothing to talk about, here.” She sat down on the low-backed stool and cupped both hands around her mug.

Hank took the seat next to her, pitching his voice into a gravelly whisper. “Dawn. You _glowed_.”

“You glowed?” Holly echoed with surprise from her place on the sofa. “When?”

Dawn turned toward her sister. She’d told Holly some of the details surrounding their other-dimensional fight with the Sisters, including the manifestation of Order magic within her, though not the unexpected after-effect she’d experienced the night of the wedding.

“About a week ago,” Dawn said, leaving the more personal specifics unnamed. “But only for a few minutes.” She shrugged away any additional concern. “Then it wore off.”

“But we don’t know how,” Hank said pointedly. “Or why.”

Dawn swiveled back to him. “What does it matter?”

“It matters because it’s magic!” He flung his arm toward the front windows, whose tempered glass showed neither smudge nor print since their replacement five days ago. “And because the last thing we need is another batch of mystical nutjobs blasting down our door, looking for trouble!”

“That won’t happen,” Dawn said with a jaded swing of her head, when the harsh sound of the iron knocker hitting the external door shattered the room’s relative calm.

All three of them faced the door. Holly peered past the top of the sofa, Hank glared over one hulking shoulder, and Dawn sat up straight in her chair. None of them spoke, as though any further disturbance would make the air burst into flames.

The rapid clatter came again.

Hank slipped from his seat with a signal for the rest of them to be silent, then slid across the room in a cautious crouch, like he was on a recon mission. He got to the wall next to the door, dipping his head to see through the beveled-cut window built into the frame. The visitor on the porch stepped to the window, too, a blond figure in a brown trench coat splintering into facets through the design of the glass.

“I was right!” John Constantine affirmed in his distinct scouse accent.

Hank relaxed his posture and looked back at Dawn. “What did I tell you?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Mystical nutjobs.”

“Hallo?” Constantine called, sounding a bit more impatient now that he knew they were at home. “Mr. Hall? We need to talk!”

Dawn slid from her chair and walked over to the door, too, passing Hank with an admonishing look. “At least open the door.” She did so, allowing in a drift of early summer breeze and a waft of both stale and fresh cigarette smoke from their visitor.

“Mr. Constantine,” she said, pushing out a welcoming smile. “So nice to see you again.”

Around a half-gone cigarette, Constantine cracked a smile of his own, a droll and uneven – but amused – grin. “I doubt that, but aren’t you precious for saying so.” He tipped his blond head. “May I come in?”

“No,” Hank rumbled, and from the corner of her eye, Dawn noticed her husband had puffed up like a territorial grouse even though he was easily half a head taller and half-again as broad as the man still standing on the porch.

Constantine seemed to notice the implication of Hank’s stance, as well, though he didn’t take any outward offense. He merely switched his smile from Dawn to Hank. “Still playing to type, I see.”

Dawn put out a low hand in front of Hank. “We’d rather you not smoke in the house,” she said diplomatically, then gestured to the porch. “Do you mind if we sit outside to talk?”

Constantine took them both in a glance, then nodded. “Not at all.” He turned with a lingering curl of smoke, heading toward the western side of the porch.

“Who is that blond fox?” Holly muttered next to Dawn’s ear.

Dawn faced her with a weary look. “Can you not, at the moment?”

“Just stay out of the way,” Hank said, stepping heavily with his heels as he followed Constantine onto the porch.

Holly snickered. “Are they going to fight?”

“No.” Dawn backtracked a moment to spite herself. “Not if I can help it. Look,” she said offering Holly a grimace of apology, “I promise, I will tell you everything. Later. For right now, leave this to us, please?”

Holly gave a little shrug and stepped away, though not without another mutter. “I just wanted to know if he’s single…!”

Dawn rolled her eyes to the ceiling once before moving after Hank onto the porch. Constantine was already leaning against the rail across from the swing, beside which Hank stood with his arms crossed, glowering. Both of them seemed to be waiting for her before they ventured into conversation.

“Can we get you anything?” Dawn asked.

“Do you have any gin?” Constantine replied, and grinned again. “I do my best illuminating over a nice G-and-T.”

“I’m a recovering alcoholic,” Hank told him gruffly.

Constantine pivoted on the beat: “Coffee?”

Dawn laid a hand on Hank’s twitching bicep. “Would you mind…?”

“Black, please,” Constantine added. “No sugar.”

Hank grumbled under his breath – the only phrase Dawn could make out was an indecorous _“fucking asshole”_ – but he swung toward the door without additional insult or complaint. She watched him a moment before moving over to the swing, where she sat with her knees together and one hand resting gently beneath the round of her belly. Across from her, Constantine chortled.

“The Chaos doesn’t have to work hard in him,” he muttered. “Does it?”

Dawn stayed stony-faced. “Be that as it may, I’ll thank you not to antagonize my husband any more than you’ve already done,” she said.

Constantine’s disdain vanished with a blink, and his mouth went slack just enough to cause the tip of his cigarette to flutter into a temporary dip. It quickly bounced up again, though, as did the man’s irreverent humor. “If your lords were still alive, they’d be positively giddy over the two of you.”

“Would they?”

“Agents of Order and Chaos united in consecrated bond _and_ a child from your union?” He gave a juddering shake of his head and sighed. “The universe reels beneath the implications.”

Dawn settled against the back of the swing. “The Fallen Sisters weren’t impressed.”

“No,” Constantine agreed. “Luckily, they were little more than trifling meddlers who were in over their heads.”

While Dawn felt her hackles rise at his dismissal, she managed to control the potential burst of wrath with a tempering inhalation. She did still mutter through her teeth at him, “They threatened my baby and tortured my husband. They would have killed all three of us to get what they wanted.”

“If it’s any consolation, their plan wouldn’t have worked. A Balance child is a Balance child, just like an Order child is an Order one,” he said, offering her an open hand. “Their magical nature is intrinsic to their being; it can’t be changed. Prudence would have done well to understand that before you punctured her eye.”

Dawn raised her head. “You were the one Zatanna sent to take care of them,” she murmured. “Weren’t you?”

Constantine shifted up from the rail. His face – which she might have called handsome for an older man, if she didn’t know him and if Hank were out of earshot – twisted for a dark scowl. “First of all, my dear, no one _sends_ me anywhere, not even the world’s most powerful magician. I am my own master and I go where I please.” He restored his composure with a swap of his balance from left to right to scrub out his cigarette and eased against the rail again. “But you’re right. Zee did ask me to handle their extradition for her.” He grinned, not very nicely. “She likes to keep her nails clean, if she can.”

One word pinged an alarm in Dawn’s brain. “Extradition?” she echoed.

He shrugged. “You can’t keep a magic-user in any normal prison.”

By this time, Hank had returned with Constantine’s coffee, as well as a plate of cookies that he placed on the little wooden table next to the swing, where he took the seat beside Dawn. “So, where’d you take them?” he asked, jumping fully into the conversation.

“I delivered them to a guardian intermediary,” Constantine remarked offhandedly. “They transported the Sisters to one of the lesser Hell dimensions, where they’ll atone for their transgressions against the Order community.”

“Hell, huh?” Hank said.

“One of them.” Constantine chuckled. “For being on the side of Order, the Sisters’ methods were surprisingly chaotic. And if there’s one thing Hell’s Hierarchy of Pain doesn’t take kindly to, it’s folks stepping out of their prescribed bounds. Don’t worry,” he added as an afterthought. “It will be at least a few millennia before they’re even considered for rehabilitation.”

That sounded harsh to Dawn, but Hank merely snorted. “Should have snapped ’em in two,” he mumbled.

“I did warn you,” Constantine said, abruptly stern. “I told you you’d no longer be able to hide who and what you are. But instead of laying low, you decide to make a _baby_ …!” He gestured at them and scoffed, then shook his head in defeat. “Not that there’s anything to be done for it, now, of course,” he muttered as he took a sip of coffee.

“Will there be others?” Dawn asked. “Like the Sisters? People who want to hurt our baby?”

Constantine pulled a face, either for the coffee or the question. “The community of Order magicians has pledged to honor the rules of non-interference, and the Chaos enclave is content to sit back and let you and your child make your own decisions; they’re great enthusiasts of unpredictability. Aside from that…!” His gaze held steady for a long stretch of seconds. Then he blinked and swung his head again. “I don’t know. The universe has never seen a child like yours, a product of two opposing magical schools. One saving grace is that she’ll represent neither Order nor Chaos but a balance between the two.”

Dawn lowered her gaze and caressed the round of her belly. “Unity,” she said softly. “That’s what Terataya and T’Charr wanted.”

“Yes,” Constantine said, equally quiet. “Someone with a foot in both worlds, to protect them equally.”

“She’s already started to do that.” Dawn looked up at Constantine again, meeting his shrewd and silent stare. “When I went through Prudence’s portal, I came out the other side surrounded by magic. This calm, blue glow that felt like serenity. Peace. Order. At first, I thought it was Terataya’s power manifesting itself, like T’Charr’s did in Hank.” She shook her head. “But the magic didn’t come from me. It came from her,” she said, stretching her hand over her belly.

Constantine’s eyes alternately narrowed and widened through her retelling. At the end, he gave her one of his approving half-smiles. “Children born into magic have an innate understanding of its uses, even in the womb. Likely, she was protecting herself, and that included you by association.”

“Do you think she can do it over here?” Dawn asked. “On this side?” She felt Hank draw a tiny gasp beside her but kept her gaze on Constantine, whose demeanor remained academic.

“She’ll only become more proficient in using magic, over time. How much that applies to her as a baby, I’m not sure.” Constantine paused a moment. Then, he reached inside his coat and, while it didn’t seem like it could contain anything beyond a few unraveling threads, pulled out a pen and small writing pad.

“I’m going to recommend you talk with someone who has more familiarity with this sort of thing than I do,” he said as he scribbled into the paper. “Magical children, that is. She’s clever, very empathetic. A real Earth Mother type.” He tore off the page, folded it deftly between his fingers, and passed it over to Dawn with an indecipherable smirk. “You’ll like her.”

Dawn took the paper but before she could look at what he’d written, Constantine drew a noisy breath to signal a change of topic.

“Now!” he said, once more tucking away his pen and pad and straightening his jacket with an oddly fastidious tug. “I must be going.” He flashed them both a toothy smile. “Lots of flashpoints to stamp out and crises to avert.” He nodded toward the paper in Dawn’s hand. “Do give the lady a ring. I promise you, you won’t regret it.” Then he walked off the porch and headed down the drive, pausing only to light himself another cigarette before continuing on.

“I can’t believe I offered cookies to that guy,” Hank grumbled. He snatched up one of the molasses sugar cookies, munched angrily a moment, then turned to Dawn. “What was the point of that, anyway? Just to rub our noses in the fact that we’re having a kid? Or to brag about all his fancy magical contacts?”

“He probably just wanted to assure us about the Sisters,” Dawn murmured as she unfolded the paper to see what Constantine had written. Just a name and a phone number scrawled in red ink.

She felt Hank lean close to peer over her arm. “What do you think?” he asked.

“I think I don’t trust John Constantine as far as I could throw him—”

“God, let me throw him.”

“—but I also think he means well. In his own cryptic way.”

Hank was quiet a moment. Then: “I still say the guy’s an asshole.”

Dawn folded the paper back on itself and smiled at her husband. “That doesn’t make him a bad person.”

He answered that with a tight smirk, then nodded at the paper in her lap. “What about this friend of his? Should we call her?”

Dawn wondered if Constantine had any real friends. She hoped so. The alternative was dreadful in its loneliness. “It can’t hurt to try.” She blew a sigh and glanced down to tuck the paper into her hoodie pocket. Raising her gaze to Hank again, she felt a frown come on. “I’m sorry I don’t have magic the way you do.”

His jaw dropped, and he wheezed out a breath of regret. “Oh, babe!” He put his hands on her shoulders and lowered his head, his gaze apologetic under his heavy brow. “I don’t care about that. I just want you to be OK! Sure, seeing you with those powers was weird, but we were in a different dimension. When it happened the other night, I didn’t know what to think. If it was what we were doing, or if I’d done something to you or to the baby to make it happen.” He laid one hand very gently to her cheek and whispered, “We just started this life together. I don’t want to be the thing that pushes us apart.”

She sighed and mirrored him, stroking his temple. “You won’t,” she assured him, and smiled. “Nothing will.”

She slipped her hand through his hair and around the back of his head, then pulled him close for a soft and soundless kiss. When they separated, she nuzzled his nose and said:

“Let’s see what this friend of Constantine’s has to say. If nothing else, it will be nice to have somebody to talk to about magical baby stuff.”

Hank chuckled. “Maybe she can give us a line on some cosmic pacifiers.”

“Enchanted teddy bears,” Dawn said, playing along.

“Supernatural blankies.”

She laughed. “Diapers that change themselves!”

“I don’t think we’re getting off that easy,” he said, laughing along as he took her in his arms.

They called the number as soon as they went back inside. The woman on the other end of the line sounded kind and composed, though she didn’t want to go into too much detail over the phone. She suggested they meet in person. It would take her a few days to make arrangements, but she insisted on doing the traveling herself rather than have Dawn and Hank come to her.

They agreed to meet nearby, at the most easily recognizable landmark in town, that being the coffee shop on the main street strip. Predominantly a gathering place for the local high school and college students looking to stay away from the family farms for as long as possible, it offered for the odd out-of-town visitor equal parts eclecticism and discretion as well as a damn fine cup of coffee.

Constantine’s contact gave good reason for them to recognize her on sight, and Dawn had to agree. Four days later, when the tall, slender, white-haired woman walked into the coffee shop, Dawn felt her heart jump a little.

“Mrs. Holland?” Dawn called from their table, as Hank rose and pulled out a third chair in preparation.

The woman’s blue eyes snapped their way, and her wide mouth broke into a friendly smile. She fixed her purse over her shoulder and strode toward them, extending a hand decorated with a charming and delicate ring that looked like it was made from intertwined plant roots.

“Please,” she said in that same benevolent voice Dawn had heard over the phone. “Call me Abby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *squees loudly to self* One of the greatest joys of writing a story is arriving at the beats you've been building toward since the beginning. The Sisters fight was one, the wedding was another, and this chapter's is a third. I hope you don't mind me pushing off the scene with Abby to next time, but it's a rather long one, and it follows a different motivation trajectory. Plus, it's hard to top any Constantine appearance.
> 
> Am I indulging myself with this story? Of course I am! But part of the fun of fanfiction in a universe as sprawling as DC's is being able to imagine how different characters from different source books might meet and come together. I really hope I'm doing all of these characters justice. It might be Dawn and Hank's story, but their world is a robust one, full of many unique individuals. Obviously, I won't touch on all of them here, but for the ones I do, I'm going to try and make it fun.
> 
> Til next time, happy reading!


	16. Earth Mother (23)

Abby Holland’s wide smile felt like being shined on by the sun. Dawn had initially placed her somewhere around sixty, but as the woman talked and moved and smiled, it became more difficult to pin down an age range for her. It was as though time held no sway over her, and she was both maturing and rejuvenating with every breath. Only the wrinkling skin around her eyes and in the creases of her face solidified the impression that she was of an older generation.

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” Dawn said, and introduced herself and Hank.

“Thanks so much for coming,” he added. “We know it’s far to travel.”

Abby flowed down into the chair across from Dawn. “That’s all right. Usually, I’m the one left at home while my husband zips all over the planet.” Her generous smile appeared again. “It’s nice to be the tourist, for a change.”

“Would you like anything?” Hank asked, gesturing to the coffee bar. After a collection of orders, he moved away to the counter, leaving Dawn to continue the conversation.

“How do you know Mr. Constantine?”

Abby raised her fine white brows, and her mouth twitched in amusement. “John and I have what you’d call a complicated history.”

Dawn leaned closer. “Do you trust him?” she asked in a quieter voice.

“There are few individuals with as much knowledge as John has who are still on the side of humanity,” Abby replied in a matching hush. “Though, I’ll admit to him being a general bastard about things. He enjoys perpetuating his own inscrutability.”

Dawn sat back again, feeling some relief. “We don’t know him very well,” she explained. “Just a few encounters in passing.” She shot a look at Hank waiting at the counter for their orders. “My husband doesn’t like him.”

Abby chuckled. “John tends to nettle the intensely virile type the most.”

Dawn giggled. “That’s definitely Hank!”

“There’s nothing mean-spirited in it.” Abby bumped one slender shoulder. “At least, no more than he reserves for everyone else. Ah, thank you!” she said, accepting the chamomile tea that Hank brought back to the table.

He passed Dawn her fragrant peppermint tea and sat down with his own luxuriously heady Ethiopian blend. “What’d I miss?”

“We were just talking about Mr. Constantine,” Dawn said.

Hank looked to Abby. “He said you were familiar with kids who are… uh…?” He fumbled over a sensitive description.

“Children with special needs?” Abby offered.

“Yeah,” Hank said, smiling gratefully.

Abby nodded. “It’s been a while since mine was a baby, but I remember well what it felt like. Your first, I take it?”

Dawn recovered from her initial surprise and beamed in favor of their own little one. “Yes,” she said, pressing her palm to the front of her bump.

“And how are you feeling so far?”

“Excited!” Dawn swallowed. “Terrified.” She scrunched her nose. “A little gassy.”

Abby laughed, a convivial sound that warmed a heretofore untouched place in Dawn’s heart. “That sounds about right.”

“You have one?” Hank asked, picking up on the earlier info drop. “A kid with…special needs?”

“A girl.” Abby’s gaze settled on Dawn, and she smiled. “She’s about your age, now.” She touched the top of the table, in preparation of a rise. “Do you mind if we walk while we talk? It’s getting a bit crowded in here for personal discussion.”

Hank hopped up, pulling out chairs with an air of deferential propriety. Abby smiled for the action in a way that reminded Dawn of her mum and that made her smile, too. He held the door for them as they walked from the coffee shop onto the wide street, then took up position at Dawn’s shoulder.

There weren’t many passersby in earshot, and the few they did cross paths with were for a few steps only, so they felt comfortable to discuss magic without fear of being overheard.

“Do you know what kind of magic your little one has?” Abby asked, as naturally as if she were inquiring about the baby’s gender.

Hank peered around Dawn. “You mean, there’s more than just Chaos and Order?”

“Oh, yes.” Abby spoke without condescension. “Black magic, White magic, Blood magic, Elementism…!” She chuckled. “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

Dawn smiled, then smoothed her hand over her belly. “They called it Unity,” she said.

Abby tilted her head. “Who did?”

“The Lords of Order and Chaos we’re connected to: Terataya and T’Charr. Before they died, they gave to us a kind of magical genetic potential for a baby. A Unity baby, who would represent the balance between Order and Chaos, and could wield the power of both.”

“We don’t wield magic in the typical way, though,” Hank said. “I mean, we can’t cast spells or anything.”

“No,” Dawn agreed. “For Hank, it’s like a physical super-charge: faster, stronger, more resilient.”

“Dawn glows,” Hank announced. “And she flies.”

“I don’t,” Dawn said, just barely holding back on a glare against him.

“You did, though!”

Dawn turned back to Abby, who’d only raised her fine brows. “We were in a dangerous situation. Mr. Constantine thinks the baby was protecting herself, and that just extended to me by association.”

“In the fight, I could see,” Hank said, interrupting again. “But in _bed_ —!”

That time, Dawn did glare, to which Hank answered with an insistent look of his own. She summoned some composure with a deeply drawn breath and faced Abby again, feeling her cheeks flush red. “The second time happened on our wedding night,” she explained quietly. “And we were…!”

“Intense?” Abby guessed with a knowing smirk.

Dawn smiled and glanced down at her feet.

Abby hummed, and after a moment of such thoughtfulness she said, “It sounds like you’re right, that your little one was just trying to protect you.”

Dawn froze and snapped her gaze to Abby. “From Hank?”

“No, no,” the older woman said, holding up her hand. “But emotions are chaotic by their very essence. And, in the heat of a passionate moment, one’s emotions can become…unbridled.”

“She doesn’t want us to have sex?”

Hank sounded faintly horrified, but Abby’s answer triggered in Dawn a more precise realization.

“She wants to balance me,” Dawn said, softly wheezing. “I’m the only thing she can feel, so I’m the only thing she can affect.” She turned to Hank and put a hand on his chest. “With the Sisters, I was scared, nearly frantic. And with you, I was…excited,” she said, blushing tenderly for sake of modesty.

He blinked down at her, in something like unhappy understanding. “So, what are we supposed to do? Walk around on eggshells for the next four months?”

Dawn opened her mouth for an answer she didn’t have when Abby said calmly:

“Of course not.”

Dawn turned to her in some surprise; she’d nearly forgotten the older woman was there. “But if she wants me to control my emotions…?”

Abby gave a gentle laugh. “You won’t be able to do that, trust me.” She touched her hand to Dawn’s shoulder, a simple gesture yet one so full of motherly kindness that it imparted upon Dawn a sense of overwhelming calm.

“Pregnancy is tumultuous,” Abby said. “You need to be careful, to protect yourself and your baby, of course, but trying to prevent your feelings?” She shook her head. “That’s a losing battle. Your body is changing in miraculous ways! Your senses are going along with it. It’s a rollercoaster of ups and downs, and your baby doesn’t understand that. But you do. _She_ is working on instinct. _You_ have the benefit of intellect.”

Dawn felt Hank’s warm presence shift close, as he put his hand to her back. “You’re saying it could happen again,” he muttered lowly. “The glowing?”

“Probably.” Abby lifted her shoulder. “But it shouldn’t be something you’re afraid of. Some pregnancies cause psoriasis or heartburn.” She chuckled. “Yours causes light.”

Hank snorted a little noise of amusement. Dawn looked up at him, feeling suddenly hopeful. She gave him a wordless smile; he did the same in reply. Then Abby asked a new question:

“Have you thought about where you want to give birth?”

Dawn blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Abby said, “if you’re going to be glowing, a standard hospital might not be the best idea.” Apparently noticing the dumb looks on both Dawn’s and Hank’s faces, she considered it a moment herself. “Have you thought about a home birth?”

The idea sent them back to the house. Abby followed in her rental car. The trip out of town seemed shorter than usual, with Dawn staring out the window as the rolling highway passed into trees, and Hank driving in preoccupied silence beside her. They didn’t even turn on the radio.

When they pulled up to the house and Hank wrenched the parking brake into place, Dawn turned to him and asked, “Do you really think we could have the baby here?”

“I always assumed we’d go to a hospital or a birthing center. But I guess a baby’s going to come no matter where we are.” He shrugged. “We’ll see what Abby says.” As he said it, they heard an exclamation from beyond the car:

“This is beautiful!”

Abby, who’d parked behind them, had stepped from her own car, her long white hair catching the summer breeze. She was grinning, and Dawn was struck by the strange feeling that Abby had de-aged in the last twenty minutes from town street to mountainside. That was foolish, of course, but the relative wilderness did seem to surround her with an ethereal aura.

“I had no idea you lived among so much green,” Abby said, striding up to them. “A bit chillier than I’m used to, especially for summer, but delightful.” She shielded her eyes with the flat of her hand and peered toward the rise of highland. “And those mountains are gorgeous!”

Her approbation filled Dawn with an inexplicable contentment. “It’s a little out of the way, but we like it.”

“It was important to get out of the city.” Hank came to stand with them, laying his hand to the small of Dawn’s back. “Too many temptations,” he explained with a sheepish bump of one shoulder.

Abby appeared to understand but didn’t press. “Well, it’s lovely.” She passed her gaze around once more. “Reminds me of where my daughter was born. Not the actual place, mind, but the feeling of it.” She inhaled, closed her eyes, and exhaled the same breath with a sense of enviable calm. “Organic. Pure.”

“What was it like?” Dawn said, because the question needed to be asked. “When you had your daughter?”

“Scary,” Abby said without hesitation. “Her father wasn’t there when it started – he didn’t get there until she was nearly born – and I only had some friends to help me through it. Everything turned out all right, though.” She chuckled. “When a baby’s ready to come, they’ll come,” she said, echoing Hank’s earlier sentiment. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a hospital bed or the bayou. Is it just the two of you out here?” she asked in a sudden turn.

“My sister’s staying with us,” Dawn told her. “Until the baby’s born.”

“Not sure I’d trust her to be a midwife, though,” Hank muttered.

“Well, that’s why I’m here,” Abby said, and Dawn stiffened up, feeling Hank do the same beside her.

“What?” they said almost at the same time.

Abby looked between them, equally perplexed. Then she pulled her mouth into a peeved scowl. “Oh, that sneaky British bastard!” she muttered. “Can never just share his plans with anybody.” She shook her head as though to clear it, a wisp of white hair falling loose from her bun; Dawn had the impression that it had once been darker than the rest, possibly a charming streak of brown or black within the vibrant white.

“I’m happy to help with your baby,” she went on as she broke into another hospitable smile. “If you don’t have anyone else in mind, that is.”

“No!” Hank blurted. “I mean, that would be great.”

Dawn wanted to hug her. “Oh, we’d be ever so grateful!”

Hank put his arm more comfortably around Dawn’s waist, bumping his hip to hers. “We’ve got, like, one friend with a kid, and he’s all the way out on the west coast.”

“Half the time, we don’t even know what we’re doing,” Dawn said, and Abby laughed good-naturedly.

“Believe me, that’s all perfectly normal.” She reached out and grasped Dawn’s wrist for a squeeze. “You’ll be OK.”

They arranged to talk more the next day, after some time for rest and research, and Abby drove off, leaving Dawn to gaze wistfully after the trail of her car as it disappeared around the bend to the road.

“Man,” Hank muttered, still standing beside her with his arm around her. “I can’t believe she _drove_ here, from Louisiana!”

“She said it wasn’t so bad. That forest in Missouri sounded nice.”

“Yeah, but still...! That’s a long way to go alone. Maybe we should offer to buy her a plane ticket home.”

Dawn leaned her head to his arm. “I wonder if she misses her daughter.”

Hank fell quiet a moment. “I miss my mom,” he murmured.

Dawn closed her eyes and felt a little spring of tears come. “I miss mine, too.” She sniffed and blinked the tears free, then wiped her fingers across her cheeks. “I wish she were here. A part of me thinks this wouldn’t be so scary if I had her with me.”

Hank’s arm bulged tight around her. “I know I’m about as clueless as you are about all this. Probably more! But I’m here,” he said, shifting slightly so they were chest-to-chest. “And I’m going to stay right here, with you, for everything.”

She touched her forehead to his chin for a loving bump. “I know,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “And I know you’re not going anywhere.” She tilted her head back, squeezed him, and smile. “Because I’m not going to let you go.”

He grinned down at her. “Promise?”

“Promise,” she said, and rose on her toes to press a kiss to her lips. And maybe she glowed, just a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do any of the Titans have moms? No, but they've all got daddy issues. *ba-dump-tsh!* 
> 
> I don't know why Abby Arcane/Cable/Holland doesn't get more love in general, because she is badass and all-around awesome. Sure, I'm twisting this story to allow all the characters that I want to fit into it, but it's my story.
> 
> Here's to everyone enjoying the story! Toasts to you! I'll be back next time with more (hopefully) fun stuff.


	17. Choices and Changes (38)

The third trimester weeks both flew and dragged by. There was work to be done on the house, for one thing, prepping the nursery into a more comfortable and accessible birthing room. Holly took the initiative to set up a little sound system into which they could pipe some music for labor. She came up with no less than twenty-two hours of what she called “birth music,” which included – to Dawn’s initial dismay – a lot of disco and classic British punk.

“What?” Holly had challenged. “You’re not going to be lying in that pool the whole time. You’ve got to rock that baby into position!”

For his part, Hank had decided to install some adjustable pull-up bands that could dangle from the ceiling, because Abby suggested Dawn might want to have some assistance for standing or squatting during the earlier stages of her labor.

“Plus,” Hank had said with one of his leading grins, “I can work out with them when you want to take a break.”

Dawn had scowled at him. “I would hope that you’d be able to stay focused on my being _in labor_ rather than working on your lats.”

“Of _course_ , I will,” he’d said, rolling his eyes. “But you’ve got to admit,” he’d added as he’d popped into a beefcake pose. “These are pretty impressive.”

Dawn had rolled her eyes, too, and muttered with suitable sarcasm, “Be still, my heart.”

Aside from home preparations, there had been prenatal check-ups with her OB/GYN, with whom they also coordinated communications for Abby, as well as virtual Lamaze classes. There had been a bunch of paperwork to fill out, too, for not only the birth but with the closest birthing center, where they made cautionary plans in case something unexpected or dangerous happened during delivery. On top of everything else, they’d asked Rachel to be on standby, because if they did have to go somewhere more populated, they’d need to cover up any baby-magic evidence with some more controlled sorcery.

As the expected day drew closer, Hank insisted on doing practice runs, even though everything from their medical check-ins to their daily at-home tracking showed no complications. The only bump they’d experienced, Dawn reminded him, was her belly, which was larger and heavier and more in-the-way than she cared to admit, but that Hank kept insisting was beautiful.

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” Dawn said with a smile as she settled slowly into the bed. She breathed out through her lips, more as a relief at being able to lie down than as a centering or pain-relieving exercise.

“Yeah,” Hank acknowledged as he scooted up behind her. He slipped his arm over her and laid his hand atop hers, the one resting on her belly, and blew a growl into her hair. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t also find you incredibly sexy.”

She giggled and wriggled back against him. “You want to put your hand a little higher?”

“Oh, you want me to do that?” he said even as he gently cupped the full round of her breast.

Dawn hummed and bit her lip, reveling in the tenderness of his touch. She stretched her neck and Hank took her bait, planting quiet little sucking kisses along her skin. Daytime trysts had stopped being an option with Holly around, so they’d relegated their sexual interactions to the bedroom…or at least outside of Holly’s earshot. It had been more than a week since Hank had made love to her in the steam of their shower, though, and Dawn found herself aching for his attention.

“I miss you inside me,” she said.

His breath blew hot over her neck. “I want to be there, too. But are you sure? We’re so close.” He moved his hips, his wonderful bulge rubbing thick and firm against her. “I could just do this.”

A fierce jolt of pleasure shot through her nerves, tingling the hairs at the base of her skull and making her back arch. “Oh, God,” she said, reaching behind her head to snatch at his hair. “That’s not enough.”

Behind her lids, she saw a brimming blue light begin, and he whispered a warning:

“Babe…!”

“I know. It’s fine. Hank, _please_!” she wheezed.

“OK,” he said, and she lost touch with his hardness, heard a rustle, then felt his hands on her hips, his long fingers slipping under the waist of her pyjamas. His palm was warm when it lingered briefly on her buttock. Then he pushed down her bottoms and his, too, and guided their bodies together.

She welcomed him with a stuttering gasp and heard him answer with a low-blown sigh. He moved slowly and only a little bit, but everywhere they touched – from knees and hips to hands and lips – ignited her synapses into sparkling explosions of sensation. The light around them went bright, and Dawn squeezed Hank’s hand hard and muttered into the heavy air:

“It’s OK, baby. Oh, baby, it’s OK…!”

“Should I stop?” Hank asked.

“No,” Dawn told him, trailing into a longer litany of noises as she bumped their bodies into a quicker rhythm. “No, no, no no no-no-no-no-oh oh, oh, oh, _oh_!”

“Oh, God,” he gulped close to her ear while she let out a whimper through her teeth.

Around them, the room went dim, then dark, as they drifted down in mutual satisfaction. Dawn hummed and pulled Hank’s arm close around her, hugging it to her chest. She dipped her head and tapped a series of faint kisses to his knuckles as he snuggled up behind her with a sigh. She had almost fallen to sleep when she heard a thump from the kitchen, and Holly shouted:

“Are you done? Because some of us find it hard to sleep with a fucking lightshow going on!”

Dawn groaned, ready with an apology. But Hank just snickered and said, “I love making her go to bed mad.”

He was back to snickering to himself the next morning when Holly came out for breakfast, going so far as to flicker the overhead lights in the kitchen on her arrival. Dawn voiced no comment but sent him an admonishing look that sent him back to the stove, where he resumed making breakfast.

“When are you going to have this baby, already?” Holly said, sliding onto her preferred stool at the island. “It’s been—” She glanced at the calendar on the wall, where a series of Xs were encroaching on the encircled due date. “—almost thirty-eight weeks!”

“Don’t rush her.” Dawn smiled, then made a face when Hank offered her a plate of scrambled eggs; they looked like snot and smelled worse. She picked up a piece of dry toast and munched on the crust, then reached for the jam.

Holly went on complaining as if Dawn hadn’t spoken. “I mean, I didn’t endure seventeen hours of that doula seminar just to sit around while you eat toast.” She glared at Hank. “Or do other, more disruptive things I won’t mention.”

He sniffed at her from around a mouthful of eggs. “Except isn’t that you mentioning it?”

Dawn set down her breakfast and raised both hands between them. “Can we please extend the peace for just a few more weeks?”

“She started it,” Hank muttered into his coffee as he leaned onto the counter.

“What d’you mean, I started it?” Holly retorted, right on cue. “You’re the one who got my sister up the duff!”

“Holly,” Dawn interrupted sweetly as she turned to her sister. “I know waiting for the baby is boring for you, but please try to have some patience?” She reached out and grasped Holly’s hand. “We want this birth to happen naturally. Calmly.” She smiled in genuine hopefulness. “With as little conflict as possible.” 

Holly stared a moment, then sighed through her nose and came back with a little smile of her own. “Fine.”

Dawn pumped Holly’s hand once, then turned to her husband. “And Hank? I know you’re stressed about the baby coming. I am, too, so I’d appreciate it if you please stopped riling up my sister.”

“OK,” he said, before giving her one of his sarcastically saccharine grins. “For you.”

“Thank you,” Dawn said to both of them, then returned to mostly enjoying her bland but stomach-settling breakfast.

“God,” Holly mumbled during one of their regular walks around the grounds later that day. “I can’t imagine what he was like as a superhero. _Was_ he even a superhero?”

Dawn kicked up a fallen leaf in the path; the last blast of summer had finally given way to autumn, turning the leaves to more vibrant colors that now crinkled underfoot. “We weren’t exactly in ‘super’ territory. Most of what we were good at was at street level.”

“So, like, beating up crooks?”

“Crooks, gangs, gun runners. A lot of smack sellers and child predators.”

“Did you like it?”

Dawn focused on the leaves they rustled in front of them, her mind wandering to an ugly place a moment. She shook her head to clear the thought that nagged there. “It was an outlet. It gave us a purpose, something to make us feel better about ourselves.”

Holly stopped, causing Dawn to stop with her. Her eyes gleamed with a mix of guilt, resentment, and a grim strength. That look reminded Dawn of Hank when he was younger. And of herself, a little bit, when she’d look into the mirror as Dove.

“Russ wasn’t your fault,” Holly said.

Dawn smiled sadly and laid her hand on her sister’s arm. “He wasn’t your fault, either.”

“I hated him,” Holly declared then.

Dawn swallowed and admitted, “I did, too.”

Holly blinked, and her gaze went glassy. “Then why didn’t you go after him, when you became Dove? You could have avenged Mum—”

“Mum didn’t need avenging,” Dawn said, shaking her head. “She died in an accident.”

“But he hurt her. He hurt _us_.” Holly frowned. She wasn’t accusing or angry, but her voice trembled. “He wasn’t any different from any other crook or predator.”

“I know.” Dawn paused and swallowed again, holding back her tears. “But I thought I was better than that. I wanted to be better than that. And I guess I didn’t want to think about the little girl who didn’t fight back all those years.” Hard nuggets had built up in her throat, but the hardest came to the top, giving her voice a rattle as she murmured, “I’m sorry I left you with him.”

Holly closed her eyes and stepped close, winding her arms around Dawn’s shoulders. “I’m glad you got out when you did,” she whispered. “You showed me it could be done.” She sniffed and pushed away, and as she faced Dawn again, her cheeks were wet, but she smiled. “You’re going to make a great mum.”

Dawn burst into a grateful laugh and grin. “You’re going to make an amazing aunt.”

Holly nodded toward Dawn’s belly. “You think she’ll take after you? Be a crimefighter?”

Dawn groaned and started them walking again. “God, I hope not.”

“It’s job security.”

“It’s also a lot of craziness.”

They walked a minute in silence, then Holly asked pointedly, “You think you’ll ever do it again?”

Dawn stared at her in disbelief. “Go back to being Dove?”

Holly shrugged. “Why not?”

Dawn shook her head. “You don’t know what that would entail. Besides, even if I _did_ want to do it, Hank would never go for it.”

“There’s nothing that says he’s got to.” Holly bumped her with her arm and grinned. “I could be your Hawk.” She needled Dawn in her belly. “Or maybe I’ll teach this one.”

“Don’t you dare!” Dawn said, and when Holly trotted ahead with a peal of merriment, Dawn just laughed after her until she returned, and they could walk back to the house together.

The conversation left her wondering, though, and when she and Hank were alone that night getting ready for bed, she posed the question to him:

“What do you see us doing after the baby’s born?”

“A lot more laundry on a lot less sleep.”

She bapped her book against the bulk of his shoulder, then laid the paperback on the bedside table and turned to him fully. “We gave up being Hawk and Dove pretty quickly.”

“And…?” he said, cautiously drawling.

She pushed toward him with an arch of her back. While she may have been far from traditionally seductive in her old tee shirt pyjamas and with her heavy pregnant belly, that was no reason to refuse the attention-grabbing effect.

“But we were good over there,” she said, crawling up to him. “Against the Sisters. You and me, partnered up, _powered_ up—!”

“And fighting for our lives. Babe,” he said, gently scoffing as he swung toward her. “I know what you’re thinking. I’ve thought it, myself! But you know what that life’s like.”

“I’m not saying we take her on stakeouts and trade her off in a fistfight. But she’s our baby. Hawk and Dove’s baby.”

“Don’t you mean Hank and Dawn?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Of course. But she’s part of another legacy, too, whether we like it or not.”

“That’s thin ice,” he warned.

She ignored it. “Our baby is magic, Hank. Because of us. We have a responsibility to her, to teach her how to protect herself from…well, whatever might come her way!”

A ghost of a smirk touched his lips. “Let me guess. You want to do that wearing Kevlar wings.” It wasn’t a question.

“I want her to know who we are,” she said, wholly serious. “And who she is. I don’t want to make up stories about why Donna’s next to invulnerable or how Kory can shoot fire from her hands. I want her to understand the power she has, and that she’s not alone.”

Hank started to smile, just a bit, in a sign that she’d begun to win him over. Dawn smiled, too.

“And maybe I’d like to see you suit up a little more often,” she said, tilting her face close to his.

He grinned. “Oh, really?”

She giggled and put her hands on his shoulders, letting one hand slide over his arm. “Watch these big guns go to work.”

“You miss that?” he teased.

She pressed her lips together for a tantalizing coo. “I do!”

He gave a lusty snort and pulled her into his lap. “You know what I miss?”

“What?”

“The little beak on your mask. The way it always bounced when you scrunched your nose,” he said, and did a quick scrunch of his own.

She drew herself up in mock offense. “ _That’s_ what you miss?”

“Well,” he said, dropping his gaze to her chest, “I liked some other things that bounced, too.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said, reflecting his taunt.

He hummed in the affirmative and casually rubbed his nose into her currently more prominent bosom. Dawn giggled again…then winced and sucked a breath at an abrupt ache in her back that shuddered down her spine.

She froze, her breath and pulse and brain all stopping for a split second.

The shock passed after a moment, and with it the pain. Still, it left her trembling.

“Hank?”

He just hummed again into the cotton of her shirt, still nuzzling between her breasts.

Dawn grabbed his shoulder. “Call Abby?” she said.

He raised his head, suddenly tense. “What?”

“Call Abby,” she said again, more certainly this time as she met his clear, staring gaze. “I just had a contraction.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Dawn, I go back and forth about seeing her and Hank in action again. I still haven't decided which way I'll swing in the end. It's fun to imagine both futures, to be honest. At the moment, though, I think these two have something else to deal with, first....!
> 
> Pardon the inclusion of a sex scene for this one, but I'm writing this story for myself as much as for anyone else's enjoyment. And it's been a while since I got to play with these two that way.
> 
> Speaking of enjoyment, I hope you had fun with this little set-up chapter, and that you'll join me again next time, for the last. Til then, happy reading!


	18. Birdland (start again from 1)

A haze of sleepy jazz tones floated around Dawn’s head, brushing the edges of her awareness like feather-tipped fingers. She felt warm and comforted, contained in a cottony cloud of relaxation. Among the piano and saxophone and strings, a new sound made itself known: Hank’s hushed, wordless hum pitched high to match the lazy music.

Dawn breathed deep the smell of clean sheets and jasmine. She almost smiled but for a sudden cramp of pain in her belly and between her legs when she tried to roll to her side. A little groan escaped her, and she decided to turn only her head and open her eyes.

“Hey,” she said softly.

Sitting in the chair next to the bed, Hank looked up from the tiny bundle of blanket in his arms, in which Dawn could only just glimpse the curves of a diminutive forehead and nose.

“Hey!” he echoed with a grin. He made an exaggerated face of surprise toward the bundle, whispering, “Mommy’s awake. Do you want to go to Mommy?”

Dawn ignored the discomfort in her lower regions as she pushed herself up against the head of the bed and extended her hands. “Oh!” she said, all thoughts of everything else flying from her consciousness as she accepted their daughter’s dozing little form into her arms. “I’m so sorry I fell asleep.”

She’d spoken to their baby, but as he shifted gingerly onto the bed with them, Hank answered, “I think she was tired, too.”

Dawn stroked the back of her fingers over their daughter’s soft round cheek. “Una Rae Haller. She’s so amazing!”

“She is.” Hank kissed the top of Dawn’s forehead, mumbling against her skin, “You were pretty amazing, too.” He blew an incredulous breath. “Thirty-one hours…!”

Dawn just sighed. She’d managed to keep a relatively calm, clear head for the first few hours of irregular contractions, but when the shifting discomfort had turned to straight-up _pain_ , her perceptions and memory of labor became jumbled and indistinct.

She remembered worrying about Abby not being able to get there in time from Louisiana, and Holly alternately freaking out over and taking command of the situation, barking orders and referencing notes from her one-weekend doula seminar. She remembered Hank somehow staying at her side and holding her hand, helping her breathe, while simultaneously making calls and prepping the birthing area. Somewhere in her memories, too, was Rachel’s ghostlike soul-self appearing and disappearing and appearing again, talking about jets and Dick and miles, and how they would be there “soon”.

She remembered groaning and sweating and gasping, the world around her going black as a phenomenal pain crushed her abdomen, so much more intense than any supervillain hit she’d ever taken. Then, almost suddenly, she remembered Abby’s relaxed, steady voice coaching her to trust herself, Holly’s eager cheers that she was doing great, and Hank’s unwavering strength as she curled her hands against his. She remembered screaming her way to relief, and Una’s short answering cry as she was set free.

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” Dawn said, glancing at Hank.

“We both know that’s not true,” he said, and chuckled. “But thanks for saying it.” He sighed and slipped his little finger under Una’s hand. Her tiny digits curled into a loose grip even in her sleep.

Una’s profound innocence caused Dawn to put out of her mind the painful hours of her daughter’s birth. “I can’t believe how perfect she is.”

Una opened her eyes, which were a deep brown that was almost russet and rimmed by thick lashes just like Hank’s. She parted her round baby lips and made a little sucking sound.

Dawn smiled and stroked Una’s cheek. “Are you hungry? Do you want to eat some more?” She pulled down the loose front of her chemise to lift her breast free, then brought Una close and did her best to recall through her lingering brain fog what Abby had told her to do the first time. Despite being drowsy, Una latched on perfectly and began a secure, silent suckling.

“There we go,” Dawn murmured. “Mummy’s good girl. Oh, you’re so good!”

Hank hummed and rubbed his head against hers. “You know,” he muttered, “I wasn’t sure we were ready for this. But now that she’s here, I can’t imagine our lives without her.”

“I know what you mean. I want to be there for everything she does, every minute of it all.”

“Me, too.”

Dawn raised her head and smirked at him. “Even if she wants to be a little Hawk or Dove?”

Hank smiled, too. “She’s not getting Hawk.” He tickled the blanket over Una’s belly. “Budgie, maybe. Or peregrine, when she’s older. We could even make her a little mask,” he said in a high-pitched, baby-talk voice, “and little gloves with talons. For punching! Because Daddy’s going to teach you how to fight just like him. Oh, yes, he is.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Dawn warned him, and they both laughed. Then they returned to watching Una, who continued to nurse for a few more minutes. She seemed to be done when she unlatched herself from Dawn’s breast and gave a tiny yawn that caused both Dawn and Hank to sigh and coo in return.

“I guess she’s done, for now,” Dawn said, slipping the strap of her top over her shoulder again and letting Una settle in her arms.

“What about you?” Hank asked. “You need anything?”

Dawn shook her head. “No.” Looking into Una’s serene and immaculate face, she felt like she would never need anything else again.

A light tap on the bedroom door made both of them turn that way. The door opened a crack, and Dick’s hushed voice wafted over:

“Hank? I left your keys on the kitchen counter.”

“OK, thanks,” Hank said. “Is Abby all set?”

“Yeah. She’s going to check into a motel, but she said she’d be back later.”

“You want to come in?” Dawn asked.

Dick poked his head around the edge of the door. At first wary, he broke into a grin when he saw her. “I thought you might still be asleep.”

Dawn shook her head, and Hank asked, “Is it still a party out there?”

Dick came into the room, moving like a thief. “Your sister went to take a nap, and Rachel’s meditating on the porch.” He closed the door gingerly behind him. “How are you feeling?” he asked Dawn.

“Sore,” she replied with a chuckle.

“Oh!” Hank shifted away from her. “Abby said hot and cold packs would help. I’ll get ’em.”

“I can do that,” Dick started, but Hank waved him down as he passed him to the door.

“I got it. Say hi to your goddaughter.”

Dick chuckled after Hank, then approached the side of the bed. He peered at Una, his brow furrowed as though bewildered. “She’s so small,” he said.

Once again, Dawn thought back through her labor haze. “Six pounds, eight ounces,” she said, repeating Abby’s declaration. She touched the side of her belly. “Felt like a lot more than that when I was carrying her around.” She smiled up at him. “You want to hold her?”

He blanked. “Uh…?”

“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “If you drop her, I’ll just have Hank kill you.”

Dick chuckled uneasily but eased down close to the edge of the bed. “How do I…?” he said, and Dawn told him how to position his arms to offer the best support for Una’s body and head. He wasn’t as sure as Hank, but he hadn’t had Hank’s practice, even if that practice had been only with a doll. After some trepidation and a few corrections, he lifted Una into his arms.

“Whoa,” Dick said. “This is scary.”

Dawn giggled. “Yeah, you look pretty stiff.”

He smiled over at her. “But also pretty amazing.” He bounced Una once, then started an awkward rocking.

The door opened again, and Hank came over to the bed, holding a gurgling heating pad in one hand and a towel wrapped around a crinkling ice pack in the other. “Don’t drop her,” he told Dick offhandedly. “Or I’ll kill you.”

Dick smiled and made a motion to pass Una back to Dawn. “I should probably get going anyway.”

“You don’t have to leave,” Dawn said, accepting Una back into her arms.

Dick shrugged. “I need to get the jet back. And we’ll visit again soon.”

“You want to take Holly with you?” Hank asked.

“No!” Dick pulled a face. “That one is all you.” He offered Una’s head a gentle pat. “You’ve got a beautiful daughter,” he said as a kind of concession. As he stood straight again, he needled Hank one last time. “Good thing she takes after Dawn.”

Hank snickered. “For now. But just you wait, buddy. I’m going to teach her how to take out a whole scrimmage line all by herself.”

“I don’t doubt.” Dick opened his arms. Hank stepped into them and gave him a great, grappling bear hug that made Dick groan. “You take care.”

“You, too, man,” Hank said, ending their embrace with a thumping clap between Dick’s shoulders. “And thanks. For everything.”

“You’re welcome.” Dick stepped back from Hank and bent to kiss the top of Dawn’s head in the same way he might do for Rachel. “Remember,” he murmured as he stayed bowed an extra moment. “You’ll always be Titans.”

He left them with a warm feeling of camaraderie and love that Rachel exuded, as well, albeit somewhat more reservedly, when she briefly stepped in to say goodbye. Then they were gone, leaving the house quiet and calm.

Holly woke and made them some lunch. Dawn suggested a short walk among the grounds, promising to speak up if it started to feel like too much. But the open air smelled fresh and glorious, and even the autumnal chill brought a pleasant rush to her senses. Hank bundled Una in a snuggly wrap and, as he walked slowly beside Dawn, made exaggerated faces and noises as he pointed out to Una leaves and trees and insects and birds. Una just blinked around her when she wasn’t obviously snoozing, and halfway through their usual daily grounds check, Dawn recommended maybe they head back to the house, to give both herself and Una a rest.

Hank kept going to check the cameras and perimeter, leaving Holly to walk back with Dawn. While her sister carried Una with only a bit more confidence than Dick, Dawn smiled for her presence.

“I’m glad you were here,” she said softly amid the faint rustling of a breeze. A pebble of raw emotion stuck in her throat. “I was so scared I’d have to give birth alone.”

Holly loosely bumped one shoulder. “I’m sure Hank could have done it.” She grinned. “But I’m glad I was here, too. It was pretty wild to see.” She bent her head for a not-so-hushed mutter. “There was one minute, you must have screamed fifteen fucks in a row.”

They laughed, and Dawn shook her head. They walked a few more feet in easy silence, then Dawn asked:

“Will you come back? I mean, I know you have your own life, things you want to do, but I don’t want us to drift apart again.”

“I’ll stick around for a bit,” Holly said, and chuckled. “Until we get sick of each other.” She raised her face to the sky. “But I think I’m going to go back.”

“To England?”

“Yeah.” She swung her face to Dawn. “You could visit. Bring the little bird,” she said, tilting Una’s sleeping form. “She should know where her mum came from.”

Dawn glanced down at her feet, wondering if there might come a day when Una would want to trace her mother’s steps through London’s streets and alleys. “Maybe.” She lifted her head again. “I’m going to miss you, though.”

Holly laughed. “I haven’t left, yet! But when I do,” she said, her voice turning suddenly quiet, “I won’t slip out in the middle of the night without saying goodbye.” She grinned one of her wicked grins. “I won’t take the dosh from your wallet, either.”

Dawn swayed close to her, brushing her sister’s arm with her hand. “Good. I wouldn’t want to have to come after you as Dove.”

Holly shot her a savvy look. “Wouldn’t you, though?”

They giggled together again and went up into the house.

Abby arrived later in the afternoon with some postpartum supplies and some delicious takeaway. Dawn ate heartily, and her meal became a more ready one for Una, who had become more awake and aware as the day wore on. Abby offered some more advice and promised to look in on them again the next day, before she’d head back to Louisiana, then retired back to her motel.

After Abby left, Holly did, too, taking the car for groceries and more supplies…and, Dawn guessed, a night of her own as a single young woman. Hank took Una for a changing, leaving Dawn to relax in front of the evening fire.

Her phone went off with a light but incessant buzzing. Dawn picked it up and smiled; it was Donna.

“Hey!” Donna greeted. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks.”

“I wish I could have been there.”

“That’s OK. It was already kind of a madhouse. How’s Paris?”

“Gorgeous,” Donna remarked in a decidedly blasé voice. “But fattening. How are _you_?”

“Exhausted,” Dawn told her. “And relieved, and overwhelmed, and finding it hard to sit still.”

“Happy?” Donna prompted.

Dawn grinned. “Incredibly.”

“Oh! I can’t wait to see her! Is she beautiful? I bet she’s beautiful.”

Una was, in fact, the most beautiful thing Dawn had ever seen. But instead of gushing, she just said, “We’ll send you some pictures.”

“Dawn?” Hank called from the nursery.

Dawn pushed herself up from the sofa, groaning a bit at the effort. “Uh-oh. Hank’s calling.”

“How’s he holding up?” Donna asked.

“He’s good,” Dawn said, just as Hank shouted for her again.

“Dawn!”

“Oh, my God,” she muttered as she started toward the nursery. “It’s just a diaper.”

Donna chuckled. “Don’t let him off the hook on day one.”

“I won’t. Trust me.” Dawn traded her phone from one ear to the other as she rounded the doorway of the nursery. Hank was standing at the changing table, hands at his sides as he stared up at the ceiling. Dawn followed his look and felt her mouth hang open.

“I’m going to have to call you back,” she said into the phone, then tapped the connection closed and let her own hand fall.

“Now, what?” Hank said.

Dawn kept her eyes on the ceiling. There, casting a close shadow on the corner where the ceiling met the wall floated Una, naked and happy and surrounded by a gentle blue glow.

“Well,” Dawn said, turning to Hank with a little half-smile and a shrug. “Nobody said this was going to be easy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've enjoyed my interpretation of Dawn's and Hank's lives moving forward, as we welcomed little Una into the nest. I'm looking forward to being able to share more stories with these characters in the future, but I'd like to hear from you! What did you like? What didn't you like? What would you want to see more - or less - of in new stories? 
> 
> Una Rae Haller is entirely my creation (aside from Dawn and Hank's contribution, that is). Una means "one" or "unity", and Rae is Hank's mother's name, from the comics. She is the first of her name by all accounts, but will she be the last Haller? Only time - and future stories - will tell. 
> 
> It's been a wonderful journey for me, but this is the end. For now. ;)


End file.
